Finding Home: The Story of a Guardian Fish
by EternalFluffy
Summary: COMPLETE This is the story of Gill's life, from a timid beginning in a reef cavern to the liberation of the tank fish in the dentist's office. Written from his perspective.
1. The Cheese Stands Alone

Finding Home: The Story of a Guardian Fish

            Mr. Skimmer, Stroke, Niches, Chang, Tanachi, Maisey, and Rosie all belong to me. Gill, Nemo, the Tank Gang, and all other characters with names not mentioned above belong to Disney/Pixar.

            Author's notes: There are a few things you need to know before you start reading this story. There are a lot of mistakes throughout the entire thing. The problem is that I didn't do much research before I wrote this. I'm horrible with geography, and I don't even know where half this story is taking place. Don't try to figure it out. However, I still believe it is a good story because of my use of the first-person perspective and its ability to get inside his mind. Please don't send me reviews saying how horribly I messed up with fish facts, because I already know. I did do some research afterwards and tried to fix whatever I could without damaging the storyline. I still have no idea about how many eggs Moorish idols have. I just figured there would be a lot. If somebody knows, please tell me!

I know the part about him having fishy asthma is a little out there, but it will make sense in the end.

            There are no Marlin and Dory in this story until the very end; this is a fic focusing on Gill. They'll turn up in chapter 11.

            I've heard of another fic out there called "Finding Home," and this is in no way connected to that one. I did not copy its title or story. I even extended the title so that that one would not get mixed up with mine.

            Okay, that's it! Enjoy the story and please review. (Just no nasty comments!)

Chapter 1- The Cheese Stands Alone

            Here I am, only but a few miles from where I began, but what an incredible journey I have endured to get to this favorable point. Many brilliant colors flash before my eyes. Somewhere in my heart, I wonder where the others are, and if they survived. Sometimes I wonder what happened to the 99 other monotonous clones, and I wonder about Niches. However, I know my place in life now, and the purpose of my existence. No matter how horrid and meaningless a certain event might seem, it is just part of a grand tapestry, developing your character, setting up future, wondrous experiences. 

            I can feel my breath coming more freely. Various half-wits swim around me, making me sigh in disgust. My concealed emotion is love- love for these helpless dummies. How nice it must be to be so optimistic and bright: how nice, and yet how frightening. 

            This is the place we yearn for, the place the others can only dream of: horrendously beautiful, violently peaceful, at all times open to attack, yet maintaining a strange sort of serenity unmatched by any simulation. 

            I have somehow attained the title of "Uncle" and in order to assume this title, our fearless leader insists that I not use Nemo's nickname of Shark Bait. (Sometimes I forget, but that's not my fault and he lets it slide. Hey, do you think Bubbles' real name was Bubbles?) Dory doesn't mind at all. She admits that she's bad with names, and I don't find that surprising. She calls me something like "Uncle Roadkill", which is partly good, since it is incredibly entertaining. 

            It's time to recount my awe-inspiring story of how this came to be. Even I don't believe half of it. I must record this so that others will at last know my real story, and to hopefully follow my example. (On some parts.) At last, I shall divulge everything about my life, and how I became a guardian fish. 

            The story of my life begins where all other life stories begin- with birth. We lived in a sheltered portion of the reef. A giant rock covered this section, leaving it partially in shade. A spiny shell protruded, driving away intruders. This is the reason 100 of the initial 300 eggs survived. Of the 100 little wriggling eggs, I was #100. My mother and father were going nuts with so many children. Imagine if you had 99 brothers and sisters looking exactly like you.

            My parents knew from the start that I was special. For one, I just barely escaped being eaten by the ravenous red spotted fish that happened to squeeze by the spiny shell and eat the other 200. Mom and Dad were from opposite parts of the ocean. Geography told them they couldn't be lovers, but fate and pure coincidence gave them that opportunity. _All _of my brothers and sisters took after my mother in their coloring pattern. _I _took after my father. As soon as I started to take shape, they could see the glowing yellow tinge on my side. Unfortunately, in the eyes of my siblings, "different" equaled "weird", and "weird" equaled "evil." 

            In addition I had (and still have a bit of) an asthma problem. How can a fish have asthma? Well, a small malfunction in my gills sometimes restricts the flow of oxygen and makes me cough. Mom and Dad were running out of names. If I were a girl they would've named me Buttercup, but I was a boy and a real pain in their thick necks. Not knowing what else to call me, they named me after my weak spot- Gill.

            Often, my folks wouldn't see us and would just let us out by ourselves to play in the open reef area. Very rarely did we actually get to communicate with our parents. This may seem like a mean and cruel thing to do in your world, but if you have 100 children, there's no way you can talk to them all the time. 

            Once, when I was very little, I tried to join in a group of my siblings hopping on the sponges. "Um…Excuse me. Can I play with you?" I asked them, very politely. The whole hundred of us had special classes in the afternoon by a skate called Mr. Skimmer. He had already taught us the importance of being polite and courteous to others and I had taken his advice to heart. 

            Most of the other young fish looked around at each other in confusion. Weirdo had never approached them before and they weren't sure how to react. 

            "Sorry," one of the more vocal little boys called. "These sponges are only for us normal fish!"

            I stared at him for a while, unable to comprehend the matter. "I'm normal. Why won't you let me play with you?"

            At last, the others began joining in. "Who told you you're normal?" one boy said. "Yeah!" the others cried. "Look at you!" "Did something pee on your side?" "You're sick; stay away!" "Mr. Skimmer said you were an impurity." 

            The last one had me puzzled. "What's an impurity?"

            "It's a bad guy!"

            Shocked, I pulled away from their section. I retreated behind a lumpy mass of coral and cried, as a fish cries. This was the terrible first time I'd been rejected, put down, and utterly disappointed. The first was definitely not the last. 

            I believe another important factor in the level of their degrading remarks was their level of jealousy. There is a common misconception among most fish that Moorish idols are generally air-headed and care only about their appearance. In an effort to break this stereotype, Mom and Dad had us rigorously schooled. Most of my siblings were terribly lost in the illegible worlds of mathematics, sciences, and language. They lacked motivation and any kind of desire for learning. Being shunned by all but my parents and Mr. Skimmer, I focused all of my energies on learning, instead of playful interaction and sociality. Mr. Skimmer was always sure that whatever question he asked, he would see my little fin waving in the water above my head. I was also the only fish in my family that actually learned to write and read in human language. I was actually praised a couple of times by my parents during one of our rare meetings. This only increased the jealousy and hatred that my fellow 99 brothers and sisters held for me. Now they were beginning to call me a smarty-pants, a nerd, and an even bigger weirdo.

            One fine, clear day, we were in the middle of a class, but Mr. Skimmer had decided we needed a little recess. I hated when he did this, because everyone would just go on playing without me. You would think that if I were called the same names over and over again, eventually they would get tired out and they wouldn't bother me anymore, but at that young, tender age, it doesn't get any easier to take no matter how long the teasing persists.

            Seeing that everyone else was distracted and not paying attention to me, I happily snuck into a darkened corner and pulled out a book to read. Mr. Skimmer said he had found it on the ocean floor one day and read it. Some human must have dropped it into the sea by accident. A few minutes later, I was totally enthralled by the book. I couldn't put it down, even though my fins were beginning to hurt from holding it up for so long. I had entered the magical world of the land-dwellers, where there were no 99 siblings to bother you all day. I was so consumed I did not notice the large group of shadows creeping up on my little crevice.

"Hey, whatcha got there, Mr. Smarty-Pants?" an annoying voice piped up, snapping me out of my magical world and hitting rock bottom back in the real world. 

I closed the book and looked fearfully up at them. "It's…a book. Mr. Skimmer found it for me to read."

The fish at the head of the group crossed his fins. "Do they write about your kind in them books?"

"Wh-what do you mean?" I was cowering in their large, intimidating shadows.

"You know…impurities." 

"Th-there's no impurities. There is a bad guy, though…he tries to stop the sailors in the bay…" Before I knew it, I was giving them a full synopsis of the book, suddenly unaffected by their stares. 

Before I was halfway done, someone near the back spoke up, "You're crazy. You're talking like a lunatic." 

The fish at the head of the crowd grabbed my book lying innocently in the sand. "You think you're better than us just because you're smart and can read."

The fear returned and I retreated back into the crevice. "Oh, no, not at all! I-I was just t-telling the story…" 

The others all gave me dirty looks. "You're gloating over us, aren't you," said the one at the head. "You're trying to make us look stupid. Well guess what, you won't anymore!" 

I watched in total horror as he grabbed it tightly in one fin, and tore one page completely out of the book. The others cheered and joined in on the sides, tearing out more pages. I turned my face away from the gruesome sight. My heart was teeming with sorrow, but also burning with anger.

At last, I turned around, mustering up all my courage and yelled at them. "L-Leave my book alone! Stop it, stop it!" For the first time, my loudest, demanding voice burst out. "_Stop it_!" 

My brothers and sisters were so astonished that for a moment, they dropped the book. 

I took that opportunity, now that I was revved up and lunged at the head fish (I believe his name was Stroke), pinning him to the soft sea floor. Stroke lashed back out with a fin punch. It didn't really hurt much, because fins are only thin material, but it pushed me back off of him. I lunged at him again, frenzied. He quickly floated out of the way, whooshing up and stabbing with his pointed snout. It smacked me on the neck, and from the amount of pain it gave me, I knew it would only be a bruise. Thinking fast, a brainstorm came upon me. When I twirled around fast, my long, flag-like dorsal fin cracked like a whip and whacked the side of Stroke's face, leaving a mark. 

It was at that bad moment that Mr. Skimmer decided to drop by and check on his students. "Oh my…" he looked down at Stroke, now getting back up from his fall to the sand. He looked over at me, running out of oxygen and choking on the flying dust particles. "…_Gill_?!" he said, softly. He could scarcely believe that I had been involved in a fight, since I was such a quiet, studious fish.

The anger and energy drained out of me as I gazed at his disappointed face. "He…he took the book." I coughed another couple of times, filled with shock and fear at what I had done.

Mr. Skimmer frowned at me. "I don't care who you are and what you've done right in the past. You know what everyone who breaks the rules gets…"

I looked down at the ground in even more shame. Now everyone would be totally convinced that I was an evil lunatic. If any one of us broke the rules, Mr. Skimmer would report us to Mom and Dad. He'd never had to do that to me before. In the back of my mind, Mom and Dad were far-away ominous figures. Meeting them by myself had been a small distant nightmare in my life. Being afraid of your own parents is pathetic, but I suppose it happens to you humans too.

He pulled me out by the fin and dragged me back up to the upper level of the reef. Thankfully, my father was away at that moment. To this day, I still have no idea what he was doing out of our little sheltered hole. My mother was lying regally on her bed of soft sponges. She shot up into the water above in surprise as Mr. Skimmer approached with me in tow.

"_Gill_?!" she cried, mimicking the skate teacher's initial reaction. My special markings could be recognized a mile off and she didn't have to float there, trying to find the right name.

I could not look at her and stared at the sponge below, suppressing tears. Not only was I a freak and a lunatic in my siblings' eyes, now I would be a freak and a lunatic in the eyes of my teacher and my parents. 

Mom slowly glided up beside me, sensing my distress. "Mr. Skimmer, you may leave us to ourselves now." The skate gave me one last confused glance before hightailing it down to the reef clearing. 

My gelatin body shook even more as Mom scooted closer and laid her fin gently on top of my head. She could feel me shivering and rubbed, trying to get me to calm down. 

"It's okay," she told me. "Don't be afraid. I don't hate you."

I looked up at her in astonishment. How had she read my mind like that?

She gave me a smile. "Would you please tell me what happened? I promise I won't be angry." 

Slowly, I began to recall the incident. I coughed a couple of times, the pressure pouring back in and I was having trouble breathing again. 

She rubbed my head again. "Well good for you," she said.

I stared at her, dumbfounded. I expected something like, "Don't ever do that again, it was very naughty."

"You have to start learning to stand up for yourself. If you just let everyone else push you around the rest of your life, you'll never be happy." She nudged me a little, lovingly. "I'm very proud of you, Gill. Just next time remember that you're a special fish- proud and graceful, not a fighting fish." Mom let go of me and patted the sponge beside her. "Your father isn't going to be back for another couple of days. Why don't you stay here for the night? I don't want to send you back to face them so early." 

As my body relaxed once again, I found myself breathing easier and the coughing ceased. That night I spent comfortably sleeping on the sponge bed with my mother. That night is the best memory I have of my childhood.

Of course, afterwards there were rumors about what had really happened to me. I never told them about my stay with Mom, not wanting to stir up more jealousy, but they certainly bugged me enough about it for the next week or so. 

I was devastated over the loss of my book, and recess I spent writing in the sand what I could remember of the story. Things carried on like this for the next two weeks. 

Suddenly, a tragedy flashed in upon us. This incident would give me a vague sense of what I now know to be completely true: No matter how safe you think you are, you are still susceptible to outside attacks. That fateful day, Mom and Dad became a tasty meal for a small reef shark that managed to squeeze its way by the spiny shell. Thankfully, those two fully-grown fish were enough and he didn't come looking for us.

Mr. Skimmer was trying to explain what had happened, but my brain-dead siblings kept interrupting. "Why did they leave?" "Don't they care about us?" "I knew they hated me!" It was as if the whole 99 were only one and speaking as one. They had no personality and no individuality; they simply mimicked whatever their neighbors did. Their underdeveloped little minds were unable to comprehend the concept of death. 

I knew as soon as I heard the first sentence from Mr. Skimmer, "Kids, I'm sorry to say this, but your parents aren't here anymore. They had to go away. They're not coming back." 

Turning sadly from the scene, I knew this was the end of this part of my life. I had to be strong, take matters into my own fins, and do what was right for me. I shot up to the surface of the water, quickly gathered a store of sponge pieces in a seaweed satchel, and attached the sack onto a stick pole. This was it, I reminded myself, it's now or never. Taking a deep breath, I gathered my courage again and swam as fast as I could, away from the shelter with the spiny shell, away from the tragedy of death, and away from the constant ridicule of my kin. This was a very naïve flight, and it didn't dawn on me until much later that I had no idea where I was going. At that moment, all I knew was the pain in my heart and the need to get away from that terrible place. 

Mr. Skimmer looked around frantically, suddenly realizing that someone was missing. "Gill!" he called, "Gill, where did you go?" At last, he thought to look outside, and popped out beside the spiny shell. By that time, I was only a small speck in the distance, and soon to be only a small speck in his memories.   


	2. Into the Wild Blue Yonder

            It's me again. Just another heading reminder thingy. Mr. Skimmer, Stroke, Niches, Chang, Tanachi, Maisey, and Rosie are all my fan-characters. Gill, Nemo, the Tank Gang, and all other characters with names that are not mentioned above belong to Disney and Pixar.

            Thank you so much for your reviews!!! I actually didn't think anyone would like the storyline. I danced around my parlor when I read them (seriously). Anyway, I hope you like the rest of the story too! Please keep them coming!

            This chapter might be rated PG instead of G, just because there's some…blood, and not in a funny way like Dory being hit with the mask. 

            I know I explained earlier that there were a lot of mistakes in this story. Well, there weren't many in chapter 1, but in this chapter there is one _huge_ mistake. You will probably notice it right away when you get to it. This is because I wasn't paying close enough attention to a certain conversation in the movie the first three times I saw it. By the time I realized it, it was too late to change it. If I tried to change it now, I think the next few chapters would loose a lot of significance. Please excuse this mistake and just think of this as a "what if this happened instead?" kind of fic.   

Chapter 2: Into the Wild Blue Yonder

            The feeling of the water rushing around me was so exhilarating I just had to whoop with joy. At first, everything seemed to be going swimmingly (little pun in there. I know I'm not funny.) I turned a few somersaults and rolled around, delighted to be by myself and able to do anything I wanted now.

            A few minutes later, I stopped and looked down on the reef, the vibrant colors waving farewell. I smiled at the various coral species dotting the surface. They were wondrous to behold, but now I was ready to leave them behind.

            After a while of swimming, the reef disappeared, leaving me in open-ocean. It seemed to go on and on forever. I turned around and found myself looking at the same thing in front of me. That was when the realization struck me- I was only a little fish alone in the colossal ocean, not knowing where I was or where I was going. It was no better than swimming around wearing a little sign saying, "Eat me." (Wait, that doesn't really work because most fish can't read, and sharks are especially illiterate. I really have to stop trying to be funny.)

            I desperately searched around, trying to find a familiar landmark, but everything was strange and foreign. Fear began to come with the panic and I circled around a certain blue rock three times, trying to get my bearings and calm down. 

            On my third trip around, another fish jumped out and slammed into me. I went reeling backward, as I was still just a child and he was much bigger than me. His body was yellow and thick with blue fins.

            "Huh?" he said as he gazed at me. "Hey, what's a little fish like you doing around these parts?" 

            I blinked at him a couple of times and swam back up to the rock. "I…I'm running away from home." 

            The butterfly fish (for that was the type he was) chuckled to himself. "Running away from home, eh?"

            "What are you laughing at?" I asked him, trying to seem tough. Of course, I didn't succeed at all.

            "Well, little fish, you better get back to your home right away. Are you lost? I could direct you back to the reef…"

            "No!" I cried. "I don't want to go back there. They make fun of me and call me an impurity." 

            The butterfly fish fellow shook his head. "You may think you have it bad back at your home, but you have no idea of the dangers outside this reef. The way you were circling that rock, you looked like you were just waiting for a shark or some other carnivorous fish to come up and swallow you." 

            For a moment, I was chilled, but when I thought of going home and the things that were waiting for me there, I knew there was no way I could go back. I set my face to a determined expression and shook my head. "No. I'm not afraid. I may not know where I'm going, but I'll find a new home, even if it takes a long time to get there." I had absolutely no idea at this age how prophetic this sentence was. 

            This butterfly fish fellow just shook his head again. "Well, don't say I didn't warn you." 

            I turned tail and began to swim back into the blue yonder, but his voice stopped me for a moment. 

            "Say, what type of fish are you, anyway?" 

            I turned around to look at him again. "Um…I really don't know. Why do you want to know that?" 

            The butterfly fish smiled. "Well, I like your filamentous extension. We should have more of your kind on this side of the reef." 

            My mind was boggled. "You like my _what_?" 

            "Your filamentous extension. You know, that long whip thing on the top of your head." 

            Slowly, I touched the long dorsal fin on my head, the thing I had used to smack Stroke back in our little crevice. "You mean this?"

            He nodded.

            "Well, thanks, I guess." After that attack, I had felt a little self-conscious about the dorsal fin, thinking that I was carrying a dangerous weapon around on my head. I gave Mr. Butterfly Fish a little wave and plunged back into the never-ending blue expanse.

            I swam all day, sometimes getting bored, stopping on a few rocks to rest and have a snack, turning more somersaults, and retelling the magical story inside of that destroyed book. As night fell, I searched the nearby rocks and found a cozy little cave to sleep in. I prayed all night that no predators would find their way to my cave that night. My life was spared, and I woke up the next day, still alive. Immediately, I resumed my long-distance swim to who-knows-where. Two more days passed in this exact same way. Each time, I marveled that I hadn't died yet. Most of this was fine with me. I was quite enjoying the peace and quiet. 

            One of these empty days, while I was swimming along, I happened upon an amazing spectacle. There was a war going on. No one had told me about the shark-dolphin war battling it out in that specific part of the ocean. Mr. Butterfly Fish could have told me, but he doubted I would make it as far as this part. 

            In the middle of my serene swim I was thinking deeply on the topic of life above sea level, and a vision in the distance jolted me out of my philosophical trance. I almost screamed, "Sharks!" but bit my tongue to prevent them from noticing me. I froze in place, trembling in fear. My mind screamed at me to move. There was a rumor spread among most of my kin that sharks could smell your blood. I never found out if they really could, but I wouldn't really want to find out. I watched them for a moment in the curiosity that went along with fear.

            Finally, the group began coming straight for me. I screamed, losing control, and swam as fast as I could possibly go to the side. Before they reached my vicinity, a pod of dolphins shot up, fighting with them. I hovered behind a local rock, watching in amazement. To this day, I still have not seen a more amazing sight, unless you count surgery on the human mouth. (Ha ha…aw, give it up) Anyway, the dolphins seemed to be winning. With a few more charges, the entire pod working in unison, the shark group broke up, fleeing in terror. Hopefully, those sharks would think twice before tangling with the dolphins again.

            At that moment, I felt it was too dangerous to continue my long-distance swim to who-knows-where, so I scoped out another little cave where I spent the rest of the day. I must be the opposite of claustrophobic, because I love small, dark spaces. They suit my small, dark personality. Thankfully, I have a little bit of camouflage and my black stripes blended into the dark background. A few sharks swam by my hole, and fortunately they were either sick with clogged noses or not hungry at the moment. That night, I was so afraid, I had a hard time getting to sleep, so I told myself the story from the book over and over until I had calmed down and drifted into slumber.

            The next day, I shot out of my hole with renewed energy. Surely the sharks and dolphins had moved on out of the area by now. I once again resumed my journey, destination unknown, occasionally turning more somersaults and stopping to nibble on some sponges.

            Just when I thought everything was fine and had nothing to worry about anymore, the gray dots appeared again. I didn't notice them until they had gotten a little closer. By the time the sharks and dolphins were in front of me, there was no time to run and hide, and the nearest rock was very far down.

            "You stupid dim-wit!" my inner mind screamed at me. "You should've seen them coming! Now you're going to end up just like your parents!" 

            A piercing scream I didn't know I possessed erupted from my shaking body as the head shark's pointy, glimmering teeth advanced, ready to bite right into it. It was very similar to back at the reef nook when the head fish, my brother, advanced on me, ready to attack. The only difference was the fact that as much as Stroke tried, he wouldn't have been able to kill me, and the shark was very capable and highly likely to kill me. In an incredible coincidence, the dolphins caught up at that very second. The shark brought his jaw down at the same time the dolphin grabbed his tail, pulling him backwards. For a moment I thought my life had been saved, that I was being salvaged again for some inexplicable reason. 

            All of that went straight down the drain as the shark missed my body, but was able to clamp onto my fin with his penetrating teeth. The dolphin, meaning good, but only causing more harm, forcefully yanked the shark backwards. There was a terrible ripping sound and I went spiraling downward, away from the incident. A stream of blood trailed my path. I frantically tried to regain my balance in the water and swim away, but found that my right fin was paralyzed at the moment, half of it being torn off and flapping in the jaw of the shark. That's it, I thought, I'm going to fall all the way down into the murky depths, get lost, and die. 

            For a moment, my hopes were lifted as I noticed that I was spiraling straight for the rigid blue rock below. My left fin pumped the water extra hard, acting as a paddle to steer me towards the rock. I may have been pumping it a little too hard, as I slammed full force into the pointy rock, dropping the whole time. There was another horrible noise, this one resembling a slicing sound, and followed by tremendous pain. A deep gash from the razor-sharp rock edge traveled along my right side. More blood floated into the water. Now the sharks would surely be able to smell my blood and eat me. 

            As I lied there on the rock, unable to sense any feeling in my entire right side, I tried to prevent myself from crying, telling myself that I would soon be with Mom and Dad, living in a beautiful pond in the sky. Eventually, I became unconscious, the world around me turning into pitch-blackness, as dark as the bottom layer. I was now absolutely positive I had died. 

            Slowly, I opened my eyes several hours later. Instead of a sparkling, heavenly pool, I was parked on the rigid rock, staring at the open space where I had been attacked. I hadn't died yet. Part of me wanted to die, and I felt that part of me _was _dying. Another part of me believed that it hadn't even happened and I had been having a nightmare. However, when I checked my injured right side, I saw the gash and the bloodstains, still fresh. I could barely move at all, and the right was totally immobilized. 

            "Help," I feebly croaked. "Help, help!" It was a little stronger the second time. As I lied helplessly on the blue rock, I continued to call for help, even though I thought deep in my heart that help was not coming. Who would help me? I wondered. My mother and father were dead, Mr. Skimmer was a million miles away, and I didn't really think Mr. Butterfly Fish would help, even though he had liked my filamentous extension. At last I gave up and my head drooped back to the side of the rock. I was ready for my death, and I would welcome it with open fins- or at least one open fin.

            Suddenly, in the distance, a high, sweet voice met my ears. "Where are you?" 

            I wondered who it was, but I knew the voice couldn't be talking to me; I didn't know anyone around this area.

            "Where are you?" she called. "I can't help you if I don't know where you are! Are you alive?!" 

            Suddenly, my head lifted back up again. This fish had actually heard my weak calls of help and was looking for me. 

            "Here!" I yelled, as loud as I could. "I'm here, behind the rock!" As I yelled, my malfunctioning gills, one side bleeding, constricted, choking me and beginning a string of coughs. My eyes were closed in pain, but I could feel as a pair of fins picked me up and gently carried me away to a new home.


	3. Together or Apart

            Yup, me again. Same old junk again: Mr. Skimmer, Stroke, and Niches are my fan-characters. I've stopped putting the names of characters that appear in future chapters in this. Gill and all other characters with names that are not mentioned above belong to Disney and Pixar. 

            This chapter introduces a fan-character, Niches the cichlid. Really, I know nothing about cichlid fish. (I can't even pronounce it!) I do know that the kind she is usually do live in caverns because of their slim bodies. Later, I found out that they don't live in the ocean, but I had already written this chapter. A lot of fish in this chapter are fish that live in rivers or lakes instead, but I already told you that this story is geographically and factually messed up.

            Thank you to everyone that reviewed! Especially to whoever sent me that big long analysis. Yeah, I know, a lot of things about this story don't really make sense. I'm only a crazy little girl who doesn't know anything. I know things might not really be "fitting" but this is how my crazy little mind works. 

            FYI: All Moorish idols _do _have yellow tinge on their sides. When I wrote chapter 1, I didn't even know what kind of fish Gill was. After I looked at some pictures, I thought he was a bannerfish. Bannerfish look similar to Moorish idols, except they are a bit smaller, have shorter noses and different tail fins, and some of them do not have yellow coloring on their sides. In fact, one species of bannerfish are known as "false Moorish idols." Ooooh, those sneaky little imposters!

            One part I wrote about forgetting how to swim might be a bit strange, but it kind of makes sense, since he had just learned how to swim with his ripped fin. This chapter would loose significance if I fixed it because it's all about him overcoming his obstacles, one of which his new condition. All right, that's it, I promise! 

Chapter 3: Together or Apart

            I awakened abruptly with a short cough and stared at the sideways, light blue, rocky wall. I searched my memories and remembered that vague sensation of being saved and brought somewhere else by a pair of gentle fins and a light voice. I glanced around, looking for my savior. After a few minutes, I noticed a moving figure near the end of the tunnel. 

            "Hello?" I called. "Is that you? Did you save me?" 

            The figure moved a little closer. I struggled and struggled to get up, flopping on both sides alternately. 

            "Don't strain yourself," the same light voice advised me. 

            "No," I called to her. "I can do it, I can get up…" 

            With a lot of effort I realized I could move my torn fin again. Eventually, after a few more minutes of struggling, I managed to use my injured fin in combination with my left fin to pull myself up. I wasn't able to swim again just yet, but at least I didn't have to stay lying on my side the whole time, feeling helpless. For a moment, I actually felt proud of myself. 

            Now resting upright on the ground, I blinked for a moment (I was having a little trouble with my right eye, since it also got a little scratched on the rock.) and gazed upon the fish that had saved my life. She was a long gray cichlid fish with a long black stripe running horizontally down her body. She smiled at me. 

            "You've got a lot of determination. That's a good trait." 

            "Th-Thank you for saving my life," I told her in my normal polite voice with a hint of shyness.

            She shook her head. "No, I didn't save you, I just helped. You really saved yourself. If you hadn't kept on calling for help, I wouldn't have been able to follow your voice and find you on that rock."

            That thought began to chill me to the bone, thinking about how I had almost given up and stopped yelling.

            "My name is Niches. I live here in this section of rock. I know this is a long way off from my home, but I tend to migrate. I don't know a lot about this part, but I haven't seen many fish like you here."

            I nodded. "That's because I'm not from around here. I ran away from home." 

            "Really?" Niches replied. "Why did you run away from home?" 

            At this point, my gills constricted, I wheezed, and I backed off a little bit, knowing what was coming. 

            "It's okay," the kind female cichlid reassured me. "I'm not going to yell at you or anything like that. There has to be a good reason you ran away from home if you're willing to get attacked by sharks rather than go back." Niches' face was so sincere and trustworthy, so I took a deep breath and told her all about my brothers and sisters' ridicule and my parents' death. Recalling all this past information was painful, but it was necessary. Niches was very glad I was willing to provide her with this information, a signal that I wasn't afraid of what she would do to me. 

            "So what's your name?" she asked. "I like your filamentous extension, it's very regal, like a crown." 

            This provoked a little laugh in my throat that I had not felt in many days. "Everyone like my filamentous extension." 

            "Well, of course they do," Niches answered with a little smile.

            "Anyway, my name is Gill," I told her. "And I don't know what type of fish I am, if that's your next question."

            Niches giggled softly. "Well Gill, right now you have no choice but to stay here, but once you're better, would you like to stay here with me, at least for a while?"

            I already knew how much I liked being alone and having all the peace and quiet, but sometimes I did get lonely, and Niches didn't seem like the loud type of fish. I gave her a little smile in return. "That would be great, would you let me stay here?" 

            "Of course!" Niches happily replied. "Most of the time I'm pretty lonely here, so I'm very pleased to have some company."

            Once again, the hope was returning to me, filtering back in. It twisted my mind to fit a new fantasy- maybe I had finally found my new home. Each day I was filled with relief and joy whenever she came back to the cavern. In the pessimistic section of my personality, I always thought she might take off and leave me, like everyone else. I was always overjoyed to see Niches swimming through that little opening. She usually brought back sponge parts for me to eat from outside, or pieces of the scenery for me to look at. " Soon, you'll be able to swim again, and you can go out and explore," she told me.

            Many times I tried hard to get back up and swim out of the hole, but I never made it all the way. I tried to exercise my fin a little each day, hoping that would make it heal faster. 

            Finally, one day, I was able to lift myself up as always, but this day I knew exactly what to do. Shifting part of my weight to the well side, I was able to swim around in circles for a while. Halfway using the rudder technique, I began to pump my injured fin. Since it was only a ripped fibrous substance, the water filtered more easily around it. If I just used it a little more, it would even things out. I began to get the hang of the new type of swimming and soon was gliding about, as a streamlined fish should. 

            Niches poked her little silvery head back in our cavern. "Gill!" she called. "I'm back!" 

            Smiling, I zoomed up to her, deciding to give her a surprise. "Hi, Niches!" 

            The kind cichlid doubled back a little and gasped. After she got a hold of herself and began filtering oxygen correctly, she began laughing. "You can swim again!" 

            At that moment, I was feeling particularly jubilant, so I summoned all my energy, shot forward, and managed to turn a complete somersault. Smiling at her, I replied with, "Yup, I feel fine now."

            Niches lit up with excitement. "You want to come outside with me? I'll show you all around this town. It's really a nice place." She swam up and slowly took my ripped right fin. "Are you sure you're okay to swim on your own?" 

            "Yeah, yeah, I am," I confirmed. I found that I was actually quite enjoying her fretting over me. This was the kind of motherly concern I had been deprived of in my childhood.

            I gently paddled along beside her, taking in all the new sights. I had had a contradictive view that life beyond the coral reef was dull and boring, but it wasn't that way at all. There were plenty of different fish around. Snappers, bass, some catfish, and flounders were among the rocky-environment dwellers I met there. Most of them were very surprised to see me. The majority had seen Niches before, maybe even knew her, but had never seen a black-and-white fish like me before. Some of the residents even stopped to meet me as we went by.

            Niches' closest friend was a different colored cichlid whose name escapes me. She smiled at us. "Hello, Niches, I haven't seen you in a while. Who's this little fella with ya?" 

            My shyness caused me to pull back a bit when she reached out to me. 

            "His name is Gill," Niches said, speaking for me, "He came from the reef." 

            "Wow," her friend replied. "All the way from the reef…?" At last, I let her rest her fin on top of my head. All she really wanted to do was feel my filamentous extension.

            As we continued on our expedition, meeting more people along the way, I began to see a concerned expression appear on Niches' face. 

            "What's wrong?" I asked her after we got back to our little cavern. "I…I didn't do anything wrong, did I?"

            "No, no," Niches shook her darkened head with the horizontal stripe. "It's not that you did anything _wrong_…" She took a deep breath of the cool cavern water. "While we were out today, I noticed you backing away when in the presence of a stranger. I saw you cowering when they got close to you. It's not really a _bad _thing, but I think you could do better than that." She swam closer and gave me a loving nudge. Instantly, my mind flashed back to my mother, giving me these same tender signs and the same sort of advice. "You're a wonderful fish," Niches continued, "I think you need to stand up and be the noble, majestic creature you are." 

            As I thought deeply again on the strange topic of my own actions, I realized that I hardly knew how to stand up for myself. I knew I was able to, but when the time came to actually do it, I just couldn't.

            "I…I just can't," I sadly told Niches. "I…I can't stand up for myself when I need to."

            Wheels turned around in Niches' forehead, and I could practically see them spinning. "Think of it this way- you have a lot of strength and determination in telling your body what it should do, you just need to extend that kind of attitude toward other fish."

            That night, my own mind gears whirred, thinking about what Niches had said and how I would go about doing that. It might be possible, I thought. Then again, it might only cause more struggle and grief in my life, and that was something I did not need right now.

            Days flew by after this critical point. I eventually got around to exploring the rocky territory, actually talking to some of the residents around my age. At last I had a few playmates and the bitter resentment of my siblings began to seem almost unreal. It was a distant memory to me, like it had happened to someone else. I grew a bit and was more than half the size of Niches. Most of my experiences there were later childhood experiences that I had been deprived of. There were no more lessons, except for one day. 

            I was playing with a young catfish and a crab I had befriended. The crab had the day all planned out. He argued with the catfish for a moment and the two of them slowly turned to look at me.

            "Let's go out to the cliffs," the catfish said.

            "I…" I didn't really want to go to the cliffs, but I also didn't want a confrontation with my two friends. I hadn't really defined exactly what a friend was at this point, since I'd had so few of them.

            "C'mon!" the little crab called. "You'll have fun. C'mon, Gill!" 

            I took a deep breath. "Okay, I'll come with you." The submissive personality was back in full force, the only breaks being my departure and my attack on Stroke. 

            Unable to do anything else and paralyzed in mind, I followed the crab and the catfish out to a big crevice of steep underwater cliffs. The crab and the catfish happily hopped along the precarious ledges. I desperately tried to blend in since I was hoping this would be where I'd stay the rest of my life. I didn't want to make it seem like I didn't want to play with them.

            With the back of my mind screaming, "No. You shouldn't do this," I managed to ignore it and hopped along some of the crevices. However, on one of these hops, I happened to look up at the water above. I always had a habit of looking up at the water- towards the sky, like a dreamer. Unfortunately, that was not the time to be dreaming.

            I was taken by surprise when my body suddenly dropped. I was so surprised I suddenly forgot how to swim. When I asked myself how I had been swimming a mere minute ago, my mind just drew a big blank and I continued to fall, darkness springing up around me. 

            At that moment, I heard my friends' voices calling my name. Their reassurance boosted me out of my panic and I suddenly remembered how to swim again. I swam upward with everything I had and finally arose from the crevice. 

            That day I learned something that even Mr. Skimmer could not teach me- that I should stand up for what I want to do and not let others dictate my life. Afterwards, in this time frame, whenever I found myself submitting to another fish on what we should do, I would remember this incident at the cliffs. Maybe if I didn't stand up for my own interests, something like that could happen, and maybe worse.

            I spent a year or so with Niches in that sheltered rock area. After spending that much time there, I was positive I had found a new home, and that this would be my new life. Just as I was beginning to get over my awareness of dangers in the world, the world once again slapped me awoke. The ocean struck again. This time the culprit was not a shark, as most would assume, but the notorious barracuda.

            One fateful day, I came back to the little cavern where we lived, and called Niches' name. "Hey Niches! I'm home!" There was no response, so I figured she was out at the moment, visiting one of her friends in the rocky environment. I swam a little deeper into the cavern. 

            Suddenly I heard a familiar voice yelling out, "Niches! Gill! Niches?! Gill?!"

            When I turned around towards the entrance, I saw my caretaker's other cichlid friend. She zoomed up to me. "Gill!" she cried. "Have you seen Niches?"

            I shook my head, a little alarmed. "Why? Did something happen?" 

            Niches' friend quickly grabbed my good fin and dragged me out of the cozy cavern. "C'mon, quickly! We have to hide! Barracudas have been spotted in this area." 

            I was a little confused, not understanding exactly what a barracuda was. Mr. Skimmer had skipped that very crucial lesson. Many fish underestimate their ruthlessness.

            Niches' friend stuck me behind a light blue rock much like the one I had nearly died on a year and a half ago. She put her fins over me, protecting me. My little mind raced, wondering and worrying. Where had Niches gone? Was she okay? A few minutes later, I held my breath as a long, glittering fish with pointy, sharp teeth swam around the clearing a few yards away. He just swam around aimlessly for a moment, then turned tail and jetted away. A painful moment passed in complete silence. 

            Slowly, the fish of this rocky environment began to emerge from their own hiding spots. Niches' friend fell to the sand and embraced her luck. She turned to her side to congratulate me, but I was long gone. 

            I only had three objectives: finding Niches, making sure she was okay, and telling her that I was okay. I frantically zoomed back around the small cavern, calling her name. "Niches! Niches!" 

            Silence met me with an echo that fostered the dread in my heart. I zoomed back out, searching high and low, around the crevices, in every other cavern in the neighborhood, and even in the sand beds. It was no use. Niches was gone.

            I was never a normal child, thus I had an abnormal reaction to this tragedy. A normal child would probably go back to the friend, tell her that he couldn't find his caregiver, cry about being left alone, and go with his friend. I was above that. I did the only thing I could think of to do in this situation- swim. I swam as fast as I could away from this place as well, thinking that I would never come back. This was not my home. This time, I didn't even stop to pack a sack or say good-bye to my friends. Any fear I had had about the open space where I had been attacked was driven out as I fled. It was time to find a new home.

            There's no saying for sure that Niches died in the barracuda attack. She could have escaped and is still living peacefully in some other part of the ocean. Somehow I know that if we were to meet again, she would not recognize me. That event marked a turning point and the beginning of the formation of what I am today.                  


	4. Self Reliance

            Disney and Pixar own Gill, Nemo, and the Tank Gang. Mr. Skimmer, Stroke, Niches, and Chang are mine. I'll stop putting the names of characters in later chapters because this gets too long. 

            If anyone has been a little disappointed with the wimpy little Gill in chapters 1-3, don't worry. He starts to grow up, and during most of this chapter is a teenage fish. Our poor Uncle Roadkill has been facing many terrible things, but this chapter is the beginning of the end of it. I have no idea where horseshoe crabs live, but I don't think they live anywhere near the Pacific Ocean, so that's not accurate either. I think this chapter would be the most damaged if I fixed the story, and his fin wasn't injured yet. 

            Please send reviews! Please, please, please! And thanks to those of you who have reviewed!

Chapter 4: Self-Reliance

            The entire experience of living in the unfamiliar rocky area with Niches ended almost the same way it had begun- with me swimming to an unknown destination in open, lonely ocean. This time I was more conscious of my surroundings and I was always on the lookout for gray dots in the distance that could be sharks or dolphins. Even in the middle of a paranoid nightmare, there is just something about the ocean that always makes you feel safe. It could be the gentle back-and-forth rocking motion, the drowsy rhythm, making you feel as if you were home, safe in loving fins. For whatever reason, despite being utterly lost in the great expanse, I managed to remain surprisingly calm and collected. This was the way I liked it, and the way I would always want it- quiet and serene. I could delve into my own mind and feelings, and my mind was the easiest thing to talk to. 

            I didn't need anyone else to take care of me, I was on my own, and would always be on my own. At this point in my story, I was about the human equivalent of eight years old. Being this independent at this age is surprising, even in our world. Yet somehow, I didn't find it unusual at all. 

            Although I was free to do whatever I wanted, out in this wide world, I resumed my normal, long-distance swim routine, this time not quite as gleeful. This time around, I took less time for resting and snacking. Yes, I did have a destination, although I didn't know exactly where that destination was. The quiet, thinking moments in the never-ending blue spread were my most treasured moments. They weren't worth wasting, so I cut down on my extra, required activities. 

            Thankfully, there were still a few blue stones with crevices I could hide in. My entire journey did not go without another encounter with sharks, but every time I saw them again, I made sure to be safe inside a crevice before they approached. One problem I faced was the need to find bigger crevices to accommodate my growing body.

            These independent periods were the longest ones, this one stretching the equivalent of seventeen human years. During this long time, I had many experiences with all kinds of creatures. I saw amazingly large schools of fish swimming perfectly in synch, giant tropical turtles, and even saw a few whales in the distance. None of these distant spectators I actually met. I wasn't a part of their lives, except maybe a second of confusion as they looked at me wondering, "What's a fish with a filamentous extension like that doing here?" 

            For fun, in my mind I made philosophical theories about life above sea level, or I would recall that strangely clinging story inside that destroyed book. Even in my young adult years, I would tell the story over and over in my head. This was possibly because that story was the only good thing I could recall about my childhood. It represented a love inside of me that could never be pursued. My internal optimistic spirit prevented me from ultimately giving up on this field. Every time I entered an area filled with thrown-away human junk, I would scour the pile, looking for another book. Once I managed to find one, but the language was not the one native to my area. This one factor told me that I was very far away from home now. 

            Sometimes when I grew tired of thinking and remembering, I would take a moment to find a stick and write out some words in the sand. As a child, I thought that maybe when I was older I'd retrace my steps and read my messages, but later I knew the pounding sea must have erased them all. 

            All this was basically leading up to the future event to come. (At this time, a hundred miles away, destiny was being formed.) However, there is one single event that I believe leads directly to future actions and a new way of thinking for me.

            One day, I happened to be exploring a little off the beaten path. I approached a strange object jutting out among the familiar blue rocks. As I got closer to the object, I noticed a mass of horseshoe crabs gathered beneath it. I had never seen horseshoe crabs. This was yet another indication of how far away from the reef I had come. 

            I did the only thing I could think of to do. With my new attitude of not letting anyone else push me around I had also become a little more bold and friendly. I swam down among the brown teardrop-shaped crabs and tried to communicate with them. "Hello, all of you," I called to them. "Could you possibly tell me where I am?"

            They totally ignored me and continued shuffling past.

            "Excuse me!" I called, loudly. "I would please like to know where this is!" 

            Finally, one of the crabs paused to look up at me. "You lost, pretty-boy?" 

            I gave him my best dirty look. "Look, crabcakes, don't mess with me. By the way, I'm really not that pretty. Get a load of this." I turned to my right side and showed him my torn fin and scars from the slice. 

            The horseshoe crab shook his upper body. "Yeah right. That just shows how weak you are. You got beat up by somebody."

            Not being one for angry exchanges of words, I realized that they weren't going to help me and began to swim away towards the lumpy object in the distance.

            "Hey, tropical man, just where you think you're going?" The grumpy horseshoe crab's annoying voice called back to me. 

            "Anywhere," I called back. "Just as long as it's away from you!" 

            "No!" he yelled. "Seriously, don't go that way!" 

            I watched in surprise as the hard-shelled runt came scuttling back up to me.

            "See that in the distance? That's Shock Rope Ship. It's very dangerous to go inside of it."

            "Then why are you living so close to it?"

            "Well, other predators don't like to come near, so we're safe from them, but it's dangerous to be living here."

            I shook my head, not believing him. There was really no reason to believe him after hearing the names he had called me. Name-calling was one of my pet peeves, despite my uncanny ability to nickname almost anything. "I don't care. This is the way I'm going. Who says it even is a ship?"

            I began to swim closer to the cloudy object and the horseshoe crab followed frantically behind, trying to persuade me to stop and turn back. I would do no such thing, determined to prove to him that I was tougher than I looked. As we neared closer to the object, I could see that it was indeed a ship- a small tugboat sunken in the ocean for many years.

            "Hey, Chang!" a voice cried. "Who's your flashy partner?" 

            Chang, the horseshoe crab, made an about-face and yelled back to his friend. "He's not my partner! I'm trying to get him to go away, but he just isn't. Sheesh, they make 'em stubborn in the south." 

            There was laughing and some more conversation I ignored. I was captivated by the sunken boat, examining a nearby cargo hold. 

            Suddenly there was a cry of, "Watch this! I'll get rid of 'em for ya!" 

            Before I knew it, one of the horseshoe crabs was being catapulted into the water, shooting straight for me. His pointed tail smacked me like a baseball bat, lurching me backwards and straight into the cargo hold. It was just my luck that the force caused the hatch to flap down and lock. 

            "Oh my God!" Chang's voice yelled. "You hit 'em right into Shock Rope Ship!"

            "Well you said you couldn't get rid of 'em," the other crab argued. "That'll surely get rid of  'em."

            Alarmed, I glanced around the old rusted boat. It didn't seem dangerous in my mind. Of course there were a few sharp objects around, but those were only mandatory components of the boat. I swam a little further into it. In the back of my mind, I wished I had some extra time to make observations on this human device, but I needed to get back out and get back to my journey.

            As I slowly turned a rusted corner, I noticed something's tail hanging out from above. I opened my mouth, ready to call out and hopefully get some answers to my questions that the horseshoe crabs would not provide. Soon, the fish began slithering out of its overhead hole, and I instantly shut my mouth. 

            It was long and brown colored, with a grumpy kind of frown to its face. Even though I had never seen one before in my life, I knew in an instant that I had come across an electric eel.

            As I floated there in shock, more eels slowly crept in from the rusted doorways, the slit floorboards, and the piles of left-behind junk. For a moment, my breath stopped and I nearly coughed. I was entirely surrounded by electric eels. Now, it became clear why the horseshoe crabs had called this place "Shock Rope Ship." I was paralyzed with fear. One or two good shocks from these eels would be enough to kill me, and there already seemed to be at least twenty in the room.

            I quickly glanced around, desperately trying to find a free exit as they advanced on me like hungry snakes. In my frantic search, my eyes fell upon something else- a small pull-rope with a sign above it reading "Emergency alarm." In desperation, I grabbed the rope in my snout and pulled it as hard as I could. A loud, shrill noise suddenly erupted from a speaker in the wall. The sudden blast blew the crowd of electric eels backward. Some of the eels retreated back to their piles with their delicate ears ringing.

            I tried my best to ignore the grating noise and swan for my life into a little hatch on the side of the wall. As the tunnel continued on, it grew smaller and smaller. I began to see the other side, but the path was now so small it had become apparent that I was going to get stuck.

            As the corridor constricted around my body, I told myself to calm down. Thinking only of good things, I relaxed my body and got it to slide more easily. Instead of wigging out and thinking I would never get out of there, I focused entirely on that hole at the end, looming closer and closer with each slide. 

            The problem was, pipes and tunnels such as this one are made in a circular shape, and Moorish idols are made long and narrow like a pancake. I had plenty of room on the sides, but my head and underbelly were being squashed. This also made it impossible at this point to turn around. If I had even tried to head back and take my chances with the electric eels, I wouldn't have been able to. I could barely move my tail and my "beautiful" filamentous extension was useless, squished onto my back and crumpled. The only things I had to propel me forward were my fins.

            For a moment, my positive thinking was broken by a mental comment of "You'll never make it with that injured fin. There's no way it will be enough to pull you out of this tunnel." I told myself that I couldn't waste time thinking like that.

            The end was very near, but now I felt that my ribs and head would crack open. Panic surged up, but I pushed it back down, and with one final shove, I popped out of the opening, unharmed. I sighed for a while, and held my aching head for a moment in relief. 

            However, the rest and relaxation didn't last long. A strong rush of current smashed me back against the wall. This was the back end of Shock Rope Ship. Just past this onrushing current was a hatch in the ceiling, leading back to out to the horseshoe crabs' valley. All I had to do was make it through that current and then out.

            My mind doubted if I would be able to have that much fin power after using it so much trying to get out of that tight tunnel. Still, the other side of me urged me forward, saying that I could do it, no matter what the circumstances- look what I had already been through.

            After a few analyzing sessions I've come to the conclusion that this was the beginning of my two-sided personality. My two sides were a visual representation of my internal two sides. There was the left side, the unharmed side, the timid, doubtful side that told me I couldn't make it, along with the innocence of purity. There was also the right side, the scarred side, the side that had grown stronger by being wounded and slashed, both mentally and physically. This was the rough side, the side that refused to back down and give in, and slowly it was winning out over the other side. 

            My fins pumped furiously, and I wagged back and forth, shaking my tail with all the might I could scrape up. Coughs rose up in my gills, but I pushed these back down, concentrating on my movement and the pounding of my heart. I had never worked so hard in my life, fighting violently with the stinging current and dragging a crumpled filamentous extension along behind me. Before I knew it, I flung myself out of the hole in the roof and I was at last free of Shock Rope Ship.

            The crowd of horseshoe crabs below looked up at me and murmured, "Ooooooh…" in unison.

            Chang scuttled up in fascination. "Wow, I don't believe it. No other fish has ever gone into Shock Rope Ship before and lived to tell about it. You got real lucky, tropical man. Did you even see the…"

            "…Eels?" I finished. "Yeah, there was a whole roomful."

            "I can't believe you're alive…" Chang marveled.

            I coughed a little bit and tried to fix my filamentous extension. "Well, what did I tell you? I'm tougher than I look." With that comment, I turned my tail fin and swam away past the ship into the future. 

            The horseshoe crabs sighed in shock and disappointment.

            I only stopped for a short while after that and continued straight to my unknown destination, however now I was aware of my own strength. I knew that I could make a difference in this world. I might have only been a little fish with half a fin, but I could be very strong if I wanted to be.

            This next crucial point shaped the next experience. One journey was coming to a close, and a new one was waiting to begin. This was the incredible, complicated experience in which I was to meet my destiny, looming bright, but ringed by darkness ahead of me.


	5. This Little Piggy Went to Market

            As always, Mr. Skimmer, Stroke, Niches, Chang, and Tanachi are mine. Gill and all others with names not mentioned above belong to Disney and Pixar. 

            Thank you very much for your reviews and please send some more! The more reviews I get, the faster I update, so send 'em in pronto!   

            I originally named the dentist Pete, but then I found out that is first name is Phil, so I had to go back and change his name. I have no idea where this is taking place. It should be in Asia somewhere, so I tried to give the fish-collector an Asian-sounding name. I don't know if Tanachi is Chinese or Japanese or whatever, I just made it up. How much do fish usually sell for? 50 might be too much, but I just figured tropical fish like him would be a lot of money. 

            I hope you enjoy this chapter and look forward to my next update. The next chapter is very long, and Gill finally meets his tank mates! 

Chapter 5- This Little Piggy Went to Market

            The next leg of my journey was completed as I found myself in an unfamiliar area, different from all the others. I had reached a port, although I didn't know this at the time. The water didn't seem to be as clean, and I coughed a couple of times, getting my first taste of this new environment. 

            Great hulking pieces of metal floated effortlessly above me. These were boats afloat. I was fascinated by this wonder, never seeing an active boat in my life. I swam a little closer to the metal bottom, hoping to get a better view. Even in my new adulthood, I was not omniscient. Never had it occurred to me that swimming next to a boat was a bad idea, and that I might injure myself. Of course, I am much wiser now. The ship itself didn't actually hurt me, but this was more than just a ship.

            I turned a somersault, got a good view of it from upside down, and mentally noted down my observations. On my way here, I had pondered what type of profession I would like to go into. After figuring it out for several days, I had decided to be either a travel agent or a human expert. If I was going to be a human expert, I really had to study this boat.

            Just then, a booming voice erupted from the surface. "Hey, wait a minute. What's that in the water?"

            A monstrous face slowly descended above me.

            I was paralyzed with fear. Some fish say humans are awful and cruel creatures, and some fish say humans are trying to help us. Now I was face-to-face with one of these horrific giants without knowing if it was friend or foe.

            "Wow…" he shook the water around me. "What a pretty fish. Is that an angelfish?" 

            Slowly, a second, equally horrid face appeared next to the first face. This man looked a little frantic and concerned. "My God! A tropical fish like that shouldn't be swimming around in this port!" 

            At this comment, I frowned. This was a free world; I could go wherever I wanted. The problem was, I couldn't tell him that. Believe me, if fish could yell at humans, I would have been yelling at him. Seeing that they weren't accepting me, I turned around and began to swim off in the opposite direction, the heck with observing the boat.

            However, before I knew it, I was suddenly yanked from the water, trapped in a small net. I flailed my fins and my tail, trying to get myself untangled, but it did no good. The net wasn't invulnerable, and I would have been able to get out of it with a little concentration, but soon after the giant man placed me in a thick plastic container full of water. 

            As much as I bashed my pointy snout against the side, the material didn't budge (but I did hurt my snout). Swimming frantically in extremely tight circles, I got the idea that maybe if I bashed the side enough times, it would topple the container over the side and break it open.

            I never got a chance to test this hypothesis. After about two more bangs to the container's side, the gentle rumbling feeling shaking the container gradually slowed until it at last subsided.

            The container moved again and lurched twice to the side. I slammed against the plastic. The man was innocently walking along a path and bouncing the container, but I was _in _the container and feeling every little bump. I was hoping and praying he would try to swing the container, accidentally let go of it, and fling me back into the port. No such salvation came.

            Through the heavy plastic siding, I was able to hear the giant man's giant voice. "Hello! I'm home!" 

            A few moments later, I breathed a small sigh of relief as the man placed me in my container on a solid surface. There was an alarming cracking noise as the man's colossal hand reached in and tore off the cover. His nightmarish face appeared again, looming over me. It grew closer and closer, that destructive hand reaching out…closer…I quickly covered my eyes, hoping I would wake up. What in the world would this dominant creature do to me? With one hand he could easily snap my neck and kill me. I made up my mind that as soon as the hand was close enough, I would bite it as hard as I possibly could. 

            It was too late. Once my mind was made up, the hand was already reaching around my body. It lifted me out of the container like a forklift would a heavy machine. With one of his swift fingers, he rubbed my right side, feeling my scars.

            "I knew it," he said, a little softer now. "I have no idea how this fish got all the way here, but it's already gotten itself hurt, probably in one of the city machines. Don't worry, I'm saving you."

            "No!" I wanted to scream. "That's not how it is! Put me back in the port!" Of course he wouldn't have been able to hear me.

            I was terribly uncomfortable knowing that my fate lied in the hands of this untrustworthy giant. Thankfully, he gently dropped me into a tiny plastic bowl of water. I barely had enough room to swim a few inches forward, a few inches backward, and turn around in a circle. I would have rather he left me in the plastic container.

            "I know it's a little small," the man said, noticing me struggling. "I'll get you out of there as soon as I have the money to buy another fish tank."

            And when would that be? I thought. One year? Two years? For a moment I considered banging into the side and making the bowl topple over, but then I would probably choke with no water, suffocate, and die. I sank to the bottom of the plastic bowl and stared out through the blurry, concave wall.

            As I glanced around the room, I noticed many other fish tanks with various other fish swimming around in circles in them. They looked incredibly lost and out of place. There were little paper signs in front of them, displaying what types of fish were in which tanks, and their prices. The way the tanks were arranged was almost like museum, where people could walk around, marveling at the exotic fish on the tables, from all over the world. This giant man was a fish-collector, a fish-incarcerator.

            As I observed this new and strange world, I also laid eyes on the man, sitting at a desk in the corner. He pulled out a black marker, leaned on his desk, lit by an overhanging lamp, and carefully wrote something on a card much like the ones on the fish tanks. I realized after a while that he was making my sign. I entertained myself for a few minutes by imagining what it might say. I saw myself in this bowl, scowling at passersby with a little sign in front of me, reading: "Big, Disgruntled Fish in Little, Constricting Goldfish Bowl."

            Soon after, the man finished the sign and placed it in front of my prison cell. Thankfully the card was see-through, and I spent a good hour or two trying to read it backwards. At last I figured out that it read: "Moorish idol, handicapped. Not for sale." I frowned at this sign, particularly that part about being "handicapped", but there was nothing I could do about it.

            As I lied on the plastic ground, the top of my filamentous extension sticking a little out of the water, my mind reeled. This was definitely not what I had come so many miles for and I had to get out of this terrible place as fast as I could…but how? The nearest body of water was a long way off and if I managed to get out of the bowl, I would surely dry up and die. Either that, or the man would find me and put me right back where I had started. 

            My gills constricted a little, and I wheezed instead of sighing. Another problem was that there was not a constant supply of oxygen flowing in this tiny bowl, and the man would have to change the water every now and then, or else I would also suffocate. If only I could turn the bowl into a plastic sphere and roll myself out the door and back to the port. 

            That night, I slept uneasily, not being totally comfortable. I knew before that I like small dark spaces, but this space was a little too small and dark. In the night, I could hear many different voices speaking in various languages and dialects. Some of them seemed to be trying to make conversation with me, but for some reason I always pictured them as mocking me, advancing on me, stealthily in the pitch-blackness. Nights were always a problem in that strange combination of human and fish world. 

            In my deep, familiar thinking trances, I realized that I had fallen into another trap, another setback in my travel that someday I may swim away from. This was just yet another challenge in my life, and like Shock Rope Ship, I would survive this and come out unharmed. At least that was what my optimistic, fighting spirit side told me. 

            My other side was quavering in fear, thinking that I would never get out of this place and would probably die in this tight bowl before that man could get me a tank. Nightmares of the sharks, the barracuda, the electric eels, and that dreadful man flitted through my dreams, hanging over me like a constant rain cloud. 

            When I awoke the next day, the man came up to my cramped bowl and dropped a handful of small grain-like structures into the bowl. They floated above my head, a halo to go with the filamentous extension. I stared at these fibrous little pieces in confusion. Then I realized that maybe he was trying to suffocate me by sprinkling a little of that material in every day until the bowl was full of soggy pieces. 

            An hour later, the man walked by me again, admired his "Moorish idol" sign, and then looked over at me. His face crinkled with a little concern. "Are you okay, fishy? I know that bowl is sort of small for you, but I don't have any money right now."

            I glared hard at him, hoping to get him to understand how unhappy I was. It must have worked, because his eyebrows creased a little more than before. 

            "How come you're not eating? You don't look sick…" 

            Eating? Suddenly I realized that I hadn't eaten anything in a long time. I was dying for some sponge parts, but the fact struck me that he most likely didn't have any sponges for me. 

            Two more days passed after that, crawling by slowly and heavily. Most of the time I stared at the wall, thinking. It was nice to have so much time to think, but I was still quite disappointed by the lack of space to move around in. On that third day, part of my destiny would be fulfilled. I was lying, tiredly on the bottom of the bowl, as usual, with fibrous particles swirling around my head and bubbles rising from my sighing. 

            A moment later, a small bell rang in the corner of the door as a tall man with graying hair stepped into the building.

            Oh great! I thought. Customers coming to see "Big, Disgruntled Fish in Little, Constricting Goldfish Bowl"!

            The owner man spilled ink all over his papers in shock. "P-Phil! My goodness! You came all the way up here to see me?" 

            The man with the gray hair smiled. "Well, my family and I were vacationing near here, so I thought, why not stop by Tanachi's house before we leave? Say, how's your little fish business coming along?"

            "Oh it's great," Tanachi, the owner replied. "See all the fish I have now?"

            I blocked out the rest of their conversation and resorted to blowing bubbles again. After a while, I noticed them walking down the hallway and sighed again. Maybe if I jumped on Phil, he wouldn't notice and I could jump back off when he went to the port. No, that was too risky. Most likely, he would notice if a big fish like me tried to hitch a ride on his back. There was no telling that he was going to the port, anyway. 

            The two men began coming back up the hallway, and I tuned back into their conversation.

            "Well right now I only have one little humbug, a blowfish, and a shrimp. I'm looking for something big, something that will stand out. The parrotfish is pretty, but I need something more majestic."

            Tanachi looked around for a while. He lit up as he laid eyes on me.

            I gasped. Maybe he was looking at me, seeing me as fresh meat, since I was useless anyway. I'd heard that humans eat fish.

            Instead I heard him say. "A couple of days ago I found this beautiful Moorish idol out in the nearby ship port, would you like to see it?" 

            "Sure, why not," Phil replied.

            Tanachi led Phil up to my little jail cell. "That's it, in that bowl. It looks better when it's swimming, but there's not much room for it to swim."

            Phil gazed at my sign. "What do you mean by handicapped?"

            "Oh, it's got something wrong with its right fin. It looks like part of it's been torn off, but it can still swim fine. I've seen it swimming in the port. I know it says it's not for sale, but I'd be willing to sell it to you." 

            I stared hard at them, trying to get them to realize that I was a living thing, not an "it", but they paid no attention.

            "How much you want for it?" 

            "50," Tanachi said. 

            "30," Phil insisted.

            First item- "Big, Disgruntled Fish in Little, Constricting Goldfish Bowl" by an unknown artist, let the debate begin.

            "I want 50," Tanachi repeated. "This is a delicate tropical fish. People pay hundreds of dollars for one of these in mint condition."

            "In mint condition," Phil argued. "This one's been run through the mill and back. Look, if I'm getting a cheap fish, I want it to be cheap."

            At this point, I was highly motivated to pounce on Phil, but I kept calm and just fumed quietly.

            Tanachi sighed. "Oh, all right, I'll let it go for 30, but only because you're my friend."

            He pulled out a bag and suddenly the realization sunk in- I had been sold to Phil. He was going to take me; maybe he'd kill me and eat me! I began flailing and nearly toppled the bowl over.

            "Gee," Tanachi commented. "I haven't seen it so active since I first brought it here." Suddenly, he swiftly brought the bag down and I was trapped inside a water-filled plastic bag. Tanachi looked all around me. From my markings, he could tell my gender. "It's male," he told Phil. "I need to warn you," he added. "You ought to have him checked out before you put him in with your other fish. He may have some sort of disease. He hasn't been eating at all."

            Phil looked at his friend suspiciously. "You mean I may be getting a diseased fish? You should have told me that before I paid you that 30 bucks." 

            Tanachi just smiled and shoved my bag at Phil. "Well it's too late now. Here's your fish, pal."

            Phil grabbed my bag more forcefully than I would have liked. I lurched forward hard and began to see spots before my eyes. Phil was carrying me out of the building. I wasn't sure what was happening, the world was spinning around in a warped vortex. The tall man held my bag up for a moment. I managed to open my eyes for a moment and I looked straight at him in desperation.

            He just frowned, disgusted. "Yeah, you're pretty, Mr. Fishy, but you better not be carrying some illness in that striped body…"

            The rest of his rude sentence was chopped off, as I slipped unconscious. Maybe I really was diseased, I thought. Maybe that was the reason I could never fit in and I could read, and I was never accepted. I had something wrong with me, mentally. However, I was about to find out how untrue this conclusion was.                                                        


	6. Chain Gang Leader

As always, Stroke, Mr. Skimmer, Niches, Chang, and Tanachi are mine. Gill and the Tank Gang belong to Disney and Pixar.

Here it is! Chapter 6! Gill's first year in the tank. This also includes the first ever initiation ceremony and some of his failed escape plans. The worrying about if he looks like Phil is kind of stupid, but I left it in there. I know Deb being shot out of the volcano wouldn't have fallen in the dentist's chair, and Gill wouldn't be able to fit down the sink, but…well, it's there. Enjoy it anyway. Just a warning, though, it's _long_!!!

I update as soon as I get a few reviews, so send them in pronto! Thanks for the ones I have received!

FYI: to answer a question, I got the dentist's name from _Finding Nemo: The Essential Guide_. The book gives his name as Philip P. Sherman. Although if I took everything in that book to be true, then this fic would be a lie, since it gives a different account of Gill's past life. This will be addressed in the sequel to this story.

Chapter 6: Chain Gang Leader

Two years before a predestined separation, a tragic death left behind qualms for the future. Not to worry. You will soon learn that birds of a feather flock together, that salvation can come from unusual sources, that mistakes are part of life, and that love will always pull through in the long run. Shaping the future is a tough job. Someone's got to do it.

With a short cough, I awakened in an unfamiliar area, surrounded by the symbolic blue rocks. As I slowly pulled myself up into the water, I got my first look at where I would spend the next two years of my life. At the time, it seemed a friendly and inviting point. At least here I had some room to swim around. Looking out, I observed the humans sitting in chairs and Phil at one end, cleaning off something in a sink. I set my eyes on the fake ship, the decorative objects, the helmet, the skull, the masks, and the volcano, not registered yet as a cannon. At last there was the strange metal instrument in the corner. The strange, dangerous, connective, salvaging instrument.

Slowly, the others crept up out of their hiding places. I was barely aware when a small, striped humbug, a long, brown puffer fish, and an overexcited shrimp discretely snuck up, observing me from afar, addressing this new addition. Should they welcome Mr. Scary New Guy?

At last, the puffer fish had the gusto to glide up and meet me. He nearly touched my long snout. Staring into my eyes, he spoke in a deep, clear, crisp tone. "Greetings, newcomer. Can you understand me?"

I breathed a sigh of relief. For a while I had been afraid that they didn't speak English. "Yes, don't worry, I speak English. I pointed to the other inhabitants. "Do they?"

The puffer fish nodded his big head. "Well, the shrimp's bilingual. He speaks English and French." Slowly, the puffer fish turned around and gestured to the other two tank dwellers. They swam up, although they looked a little nervous.

"H-Hello," the striped humbug greeted me.

The shrimp offered me a polite, "Bonjour." Then, a game of 20 questions commenced.

"Where did you come from?" the puffer fish asked.

"The reef," I answered, since that was really where I had come from.

"The Reef?" the striped humbug said, confused. "I've never heard of a store called The Reef."

"It's not a store!" I cried. "The reef! You know, the coral reef!"

The shrimp's little eyes grew wide. "In zee ocean? _Zat _reef?"

"Of course," I answered him. This should be obvious and not need any extra explanation.

Like a little pink dart, the shrimp was instantly on my back, picking at my skin.

"Hey, get off me!" I yelled at him. With a swift flick of my filamentous extension, he was flung off and landed in the rocks below.

The striped humbug backed off.

"Hey, don't get all riled up," the puffer fish said. "Jacques just does that to new people to decontaminate them. He's sort of a neat freak."

After a moment, I looked back down at the little shrimp. "Uh, sorry Jacques. I thought you were attacking me." I could see the fear in most of their eyes, so I tried to make amends. I stuck out my left fin. "Really, I'm sorry. My name is Gill. I'm really not a violent fish, I've just been through a lot."

Slowly, the striped humbug glided up and shook my fin. "Well, that's good. My name is Deb." She turned to her side and pointed at the glass siding. "Over there is my twin sister, Flo. Flo, say hello to the new guy."

I looked around, confused. "Where?"

"Right there!" Deb cried, jabbing at the glass. "You can't see her?"

The puffer fish swam up next. "Don't mind her," he said. "She's a little nutso."

A little while later, I realized that she was talking about her reflection and I nearly burst out laughing.

The puffer fish then offered his fin and I shook it. "The name's Bloat," he told me. "Glad to have you on board."

After his introduction, I floated there uncomfortably as Jacques crawled around, cleaning me, and Deb swam around, examining me. She laid a fin on my filamentous extension.

"I like this thing on your head. It looks really nice. Wish I had one."

"Everyone like my filamentous extension," I commented.

"Your what?"

"Filamentous extension."

"What's a filamentous extension?"

Bloat could see my frustration, so he explained it to her.

Jacques finished his cleaning job and hopped off back onto the pebbles.

Deb swam around to my other side and examined my scars. "What happened to your fin?" she asked.

Now was my chance, I thought. I could make them respect me by saying the right things. Telling about the shark attack would not earn respect. "I'd rather not talk about it," I told them.

"Eets okay," Jacques tried to assure me, "Vee can keep a zeegret."

I swam a little away from them. "I said I don't want to talk about it," I repeated.

"Please?" Deb begged.

Fortunately, Bloat zipped up in front of them. "Hey, if the man says he doesn't want to talk about it, he doesn't have to. Understand?"

"Geez, Bloat what's with you defending him like that?" Deb asked.

The puffer opened his big mouth to explain, but I beat him to it. "He's doing that because in order to coexist, we all need to be able to get along. That can't happen without a little sacrifice now and then. You can't have it your way all the time, and you need to get used to that."

Thankfully, my forwardness actually made her think. "You're…you're right. I'm sorry, that was rude of me."

Suddenly, Phil approached our tank and peered in, since he had a short break at the moment. "Oh good, that new one finally woke up, guess I should throw some pellets in."

A woman's voice came over a small speaker. "Dr. Sherman, the front office would like to see you."

He pressed a button and called back, "Just a minute, I'm going to feed the fish."

"Does he have sponges?" I asked Bloat.

"Sponges?" By his tone of voice, I could tell that he'd never heard of sponges before.

Phil yanked open the top of the tank and threw in a bunch of that strange fibrous substance.

Bloat and Deb immediately swam to the top and began chewing on it.

I swam up beside them, confused. "What is that stuff and why are you eating it?" I asked them.

Deb looked shocked. "It's fish food, silly. Here, have a bite."

I stared at the little pieces in disgust. All my life, I'd never eaten anything but sponge pieces. It looked like that was going to have to change if I was to continue living. Somehow I managed to swallow my pride and a cheap pellet with it.

As Phil walked back into the room, I glanced sideways at him and noticed that he was looking at me. "Tanachi's full of baloney. He was just telling me that fish had a disease to scare me. See, he's eating."

Later that day, I learned that each of the fish I had met had their own places to sleep. Jacques always retreated into the fake helmet when the lights went out, Bloat took refuge beside the tiki heads, and Deb found shelter in the fake shipwreck structure.

Quickly, I glanced around, looking for a small, dark space to call my own. The hut seemed small enough, but I was afraid it was too small. The space beside the false volcano was glowing and definitely too bright. At last, I set my sights on the fake pirate skull. Sure, it was ugly, but after squeezing through the eyehole, I found the interior to be quite accommodating. Of course, I scared Bloat, Jacques, and Deb the next morning by emerging from it. They had formulated in their minds some sort of proof that if a fish took residence in the skull, it meant he was "tough."

These premature days were filled with worry. At first, I worried about whether I looked like Phil, and I spent hours comparing us.

Finally, Bloat snapped me out of this when I asked him if I looked like him. He replied, "Well, do you _want _to look like Phil?"

I shook my head vigorously.

"Then you _don't _look like Phil."

Moving on from this, I then worried that I was becoming a tyrant, rising to power through fear. This again returned to my friend's explanation. If I didn't want to be a tyrant, I wasn't a tyrant.

About a week later, I came into contact with another different species. I was innocently swimming along the side near my area when something suddenly smashed into the window outside. Normally, I wouldn't pay any attention to things like this, but following this, a big bird with a giant bill poked his head in beside the tank. Bloat, Jacques, and Deb came gliding up beside me.

"Hey there, Nigel," Bloat called to the bird.

"You know this bird?" I asked him.

"Yeah, we met because he keeps slamming into the window."

Nigel poked his head a little father in. "No, I'm just the friendly neighborhood pelican. That a new guy?"

"Oh, yeah." I swam a little closer to the edge, although it really wasn't that necessary. "I'm Gill, pleased to meet you."

Nigel laughed a little. "Wow, the new guy's got manners. Unlike some other fish I know…" I'm not sure whom he was talking about, but I thought I saw a glance at Bloat. I tucked this character in the back of my mind, since he would surface again many times.

Days passed slowly with this crazy crew and I kept my sanity by reading over the shoulders of various customers sitting in the waiting room. You would think someone would notice a big fish like me hovering above someone for 10-minute intervals. I read about the Olympics, the latest fashions, parental techniques, new technologies, the adventures of a group of magical ponies, and cooking tips I would rather not have read. The others thought I was strange for being able to read, but still accepted me as their leader since I knew more than them and I lived in the intimidating skull.

The same feeling as in the little goldfish bowl came back to me: This is nice and all, that I get to meet a lot of new fish, but this isn't my home. This isn't what I had come all this way for. In the future, I would find out that I was wrong again.

The four of us liked to watch the works on the humans in the office. By observing these bizarre spectacles, we expanded our vocabulary, and soon we were talking like technical junkies, although we really knew nothing at all.

At last, a while later, I wasn't "the new guy" anymore. The addition was a clingy, nervous yellow tang. He screamed when he saw me. It also took a while for him to adjust to eating the fish food pellets. In choosing a sleeping spot, he took a spot next to the bubble-blowing fake treasure chest he had become obsessed with. A few days later, we introduced this new guy to Nigel, and everything seemed to be going fine. However, I felt there was something we should do for this newcomer, a sort of welcoming ceremony.

As I stared out the eyehole, in the dark, I looked up at the fake volcano, spewing bubbles from an internal engine thing. The idea struck me- we could conduct an initiation ceremony with a test of "bravery." Pretending that the bubble spray was a dangerous trap, we would force new people to go through it, also pretending to "cleanse" them and do some mysterious chanting. As I gazed at the scene before me, I could see it being played out before my eyes. At first, it seemed a little cruel, but afterwards, once everything was done, the newcomer would feel confident and empowered to make a difference in the world. This is what I wanted the others to feel.

Instantly, I poked out of the left eyehole and made my way over to the tiki base, where Bloat slept. One tap on his head from my snout was all it took to raise him.

"Huh? What? Is it morning already? Hey, it's still dark!"

"Shh," I hissed at him, holding my left fin up. "I have an idea, and I need your approval."

"Huh?" Bloat was still blinking, trying to see, and he at last laid eyes on me. "Gill? Why'd you wake me up like that?"

I sighed, creating some bubbles. "Didn't you hear anything I just said?" It took a long time to get him to listen and not fall back asleep, but I told him about my idea, and he thought it was a good.

The next day, I managed to have a meeting with the other three members while hiding from the new yellow tang. We found a space behind the fake shipwreck to meet, although I had to pull my filamentous extension down because the tip was sticking up. Bloat and I explained the ceremony idea to Jacques and Deb. They were for it too, and we began setting up a plan for how it would proceed. We all decided that Jacques should be the escort, Deb would carry seaweed pieces and be the "cleanser", Bloat would chant on my side, and I would conduct the ceremony, since it was my idea.

I was happy to see how excited everyone was about this. Deb immediately began gathering little fake seaweed branches for her duty. Bloat quietly tried out different chants, trying to find the right one. Jacques didn't have anything to practice, being the little escort, so he just stood on top of the helmet, on the lookout for the new tang.

Using a stripped seaweed stick, I tried to write out my speech using goopy substances from the bottom. I was suddenly appalled, realizing I had forgotten how to spell "mountain", and quickly erased it. It wasn't as if anyone would have noticed. None of the others in the tank at this time could read.

Deciding on memorizing the speech instead of writing it down, I set to work piecing together fake yellow seaweed leaves that I liked to call "bananagrass". I arranged the pieces in a ring and made sure they would fit around my head, like a crown. This was my headdress.

Just at that moment, Bloat floated by and got a look at it. "Hey, that's cool! Can you make one for me too?"

I looked around the area, searching for another bananagrass seaweed stalk, but there were none left. "Uh, sorry, I'm out of bananagrass."

He pouted for a little while, but didn't argue because I was the scary fish that lived in the fake skull. Now I knew I was facing a different kind of discrimination.

Anyway, the night finally came, and everything was in place. Jacques scuttled out to the treasure chest and awakened our inductee. On the way to the illuminated plastic volcano, Deb whacked the new yellow tang with a seaweed leaf, "cleansing" him. Then she swam around to the back o chant with Bloat. As they were chanting, Jacques led the new tang up to the summit and then fell back down for the next part of the ceremony. I hovered a few inches in front of him, on the other side, wearing my headdress and trying to look overbearing. I guess it worked a little too well, since he was cowering there, muttering to himself. I raised my left fin to bring the chanting to a halt and looked down at him.

"State your name," I said, since this was required for the following speech.

He backed off a little bit and chewed on his fins. "Um…uh…I…I don't have a name…"

"Don't worry," I told him, "I'll give ya one." In my mind, that sentence was continued with "But at the end of the ceremony, since I need to think up a good one." "Newcomer of sunny yellow, you have come to the summit of Mt. Wannahockaloogie to join in our ranks. To prove yourself worthy, you must now swim through…the Ring of Fire!"

At that instant, Jacques slammed on the volcano bubble pedal and the bubbles came shooting out the top. The trembling tang nearly screamed again. I tried hard not to show my amusement. If I laughed, it would mess up the whole thing. This was a realization that even the mildest and gentlest of things can be terrifying if they are set up to be terrifying. I am the plastic volcano, lots of flashy lights and intimidating warning signs, but inside soft and penetrable.

At last, the tang zoomed through the bubble column, with closed eyes. He kept on going until he whacked into the glass siding. Bloat and Deb lost their serious masks and began chuckling.

Smiling, I pulled the yellow tang back in front of them. "From now on, you shall be known as Bubbles. Welcome, brother Bubbles."

One night, I was lying on the bottom of my ugly, comfortable hut, deeply thinking about my life up to this point. Suddenly, I began to get angry, and I don't get angry often. I didn't swim hundreds of miles, endure a shark attack, survive Shock Rope Ship, and deal with two losses, just to be caught and placed in a little box where I would grow old and die. I banged the sloping side, out of frustration and nearly toppled it over. If I had been in a cave, I wouldn't have such problems.

Suddenly, my gills constricted again, and I fell back to the bottom, coughing. This always happened when I got too worked up over something, but in this environment, they had been malfunctioning a little more. This water was different from ocean water- it wasn't as pure and easy to breathe. Up until then, I hadn't told the tank members about my asthma, viewing it as a weakness, but I wondered how long I could get away with not telling them.

The next day, I found a thin layer of goop covering the front glass panel. Picking up the stripped seaweed stick, I unintelligently wrote a cryptic message on the panel. "We are dying. Please let us free." ( I had to think of how to spell "dying" and "please," though.)

A few minutes later, Phil actually noticed the message when he went out to get someone. Of course, to them, it was written backwards, but still legible. "Huh?" he said. "Who's been writing on my fish tank?"

"Nobody," one little kid spoke up. "The fish wrote it."

I was paralyzed. One of the golden rules of animal coexistence says that if you can write, don't show it. I couldn't believe I had overlooked something like that.

Thankfully, Phil just laughed. "Fish can't write, you know that."

"But it did!" he insisted. "That one there, the big one with the stripes."

I quickly turned away, pretending that I wasn't listening.

Phil laughed again. "You see, it's impossible for a fish to write, their fins don't bend the right way." He stepped up and pointed at me and I nearly died. "This one especially wouldn't be able to write. Half of his right fin is missing."

"He's left-handed," the boy insisted. "I saw him writing with that piece of seaweed." They argued about it as they entered into the other room.

I breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing I wanted was to be in trouble with the animal communication committee. As soon as their backs were turned, I pretended to slam into the side, wiping the message off.

"The clean should be coming soon," Deb commented as she glided by. She stopped for a moment as she passed me. "What happened, Gill? You've got gunk all over your side."

"It's nothing," I answered her, but no sooner did I enter the other side of the tank, when Jacques jumped onto my side and the gunk was gone in a matter of minutes.

About a half an hour later, the top was yanked off by the notorious hand, and we were scooped up, one by one, and placed in plastic bags. I had a vague sense of déjà vu as I floated around, looking at the scenery from a creased bubble.

There was a sigh in the front, and I looked up at Bubbles, the closest to the window. "Look at the ocean," he said. "It's _right there_. If only we were out there right now…"

He turned a mental crank in my head, and the wheels began spinning. "Then let's go!"

Everyone was now looking at me. "Go? _Where_?!" Deb cried.

"Out the window!" I cried. "We're in rolling spheres of water!" With that, I jabbed at the side of the bag and it shot forward. I banged into Bloat, and we had a domino effect, Bubbles shot forward the most, almost nudging out the window. I was about to jab again, but at that moment, Phil finished with the cleaning job, grabbed my bag, and emptied its contents back in prison. Dumbfounded, the rest just stood there, waiting for doom. They were emptied back in also.

The chance was missed, but the hope was most definitely not gone. At last I felt like I had a mission and a reason for arriving at this horrible place- I had to return these captured fish to their rightful place in the ocean.

Staring at the volcano for a while, I formulated the first of a string of liberating plots, this one the most naïve. In this plot, I rallied the others and together we jumped up and knocked the cover off. Then, we all worked to turn and angle the volcano. I thought that if we got enough power, the volcano could act as a cannon, propelling us out to sea. Bubbles was the reluctant guinea pig. With one swift turn from Jacques, the jet stream erupted and Bubbles went flying straight out the window. However, I didn't hear a splash after that.

A minute later, a familiar voice reached our hearing range. "Help! …in the tree!"

That was when I noticed the little yellow tang caught in a high tree outside the window. Quickly, I began pulling up fake seaweed strands. "Hurry!" I yelled to the others. "Start tying them together!"

The other members didn't know what else to do, so they followed my orders. Soon we had a long seaweed rope that I threw out the window. Bubbles grabbed onto it and we carefully pulled him back up into the tank. He coughed and spluttered.

"I…I nearly suffocated!"

I shook my head. "No, this is definitely not going to work. The volcano doesn't have enough power to make it to the ocean." However, I did try that approach again, by myself. I tried so hard to gain higher altitude that I smacked into the top of the window and fell back onto the counter. Thankfully, it was daytime, and Phil noticed me and placed me back in prison. I tried several different variations, all times ending up on the counter or the floor. Phil was getting sick and tired of saving my gills.

One day, I was listening in on a conversation between Phil and a customer.

"My kids just love your fish tank," she said. "And I have to admire it also. You did a good job of putting it together. The fish are beautiful too. I especially like that one in the back with the long fin. Is that an angelfish?"

"Oh, Houdini?" Phil said, pointing at me. "That's a Moorish idol. It's missing half a fin, though." Why did he always point out my flaws to everyone? Whenever he talked about the others, it was only good things.

The lady laughed a little. "Why's it called Houdini?"

"Oh, that's just a name I gave him, since he's an escape artist. I'm always finding him flopping around on the counter or the floor, and I don't know how he got there."

I almost laughed at them. It became a well-known fact that humans generally thought fish were stupid and couldn't think for themselves.

A few days later, I happened to be pacing around the office side, and I noticed a few books lying open on a desk. One was a fascinating instruction manual, with a detailed diagram, of the filtering device sitting in the corner of the tank. I instantly memorized this diagram, thinking that it might come in handy one day.

The second, fascinating piece was an article on reducing ocean pollution. One sentence struck me and whirred the gears again- "Since everything that goes down the drains goes into our oceans, we ask our residents to be wise in choosing what to toss down the sink." _Everything that goes down the drains goes into our oceans_. I was aiming in the wrong direction- we needed to shoot for the sink, not the window.

I streamed for the other members, ready with my new information. As soon as I told them about it, they were already doubtful.

"No way," Bubbles said. "I'm not going to try that again. I was almost killed being launched out of that window!"

I shook my head. "Well, I'll make sure you're not the one to go first. C'mon, don't you want to get out? I _know _this is going to work!"

Bloat turned around and gave me a questioning stare. "What are you going to bet?" This was his only way of assuring that I truly meant what I said.

Not knowing what else I could put on the line, I grabbed my headdress and tossed it in front of him. "I'll bet my bananagrass."

That seemed to satisfy him, and that night I thought would be liberation night. We tilted the volcano, as normal, but this time we didn't have to rotate it. This time, Deb was the one going first. She went shooting off in a perfect arch…and landed straight in the office chair.

"Help!" she yelled.

We instantly got to work again, forming the seaweed chain, and tossed it to her.

As soon as she touched down into the water, Bloat looked over at me. Then he grabbed the side of my headdress. "Alright, gimme that bananagrass!"

I had choice but to surrender, and he paraded around the next day, wearing my headdress. (Phil was pretty much convinced his fish were crazy by now. Mysterious writing appeared on the side of the tank, Houdini managed to magically appear outside every now and then, some mornings the seaweed would be all torn up, and now the puffer fish was wearing some sort of crown of seaweed.)

Soon after that, there was another new tank member. (Maybe he was brought to try to ease some of the insanity.) Anyway, this new purple-and-yellow gramma became Jacques' new best friend, both of them hating germs. He was long and skinny and just as nervous as Bubbles, if not even more nervous.

Fortunately for him, I was forced to hand over the ceremony speech to Bloat, new master of the bananagrass. In a way, it was a good thing. His voice was so booming and forceful, and he added a few words to my initial speech.

I gave this new clean freak the name of Gurgle, and we introduced him to Nigel, and the normal regulations. He chose a sleeping spot next to the volcano where he said it was "bright and sanitary." This particular fellow never really made an impact on my life, but he did have a genius idea one day.

Bloat was arguing with Gurgle about redecoration and what new things should be taken in or out. Suddenly he puffed up from overexcitement. As he went floating by Gurgle, the little fish managed to grab his side and chuck him like a big volleyball, over to my side.

"C'mon, Gil, hit him back!" he called.

Normally, I'm not one for frivolous play, but how could I resist a chance to get back at that bananagrass swindler? I whacked the inflated Bloat back over to him.

We had a good rally going for a while, but then Gurgle slammed into the sidewall trying to return him. After that, Bloat deflated and we had to give up. Only a few people in the waiting room witnessed our strange underwater game of "pufferball", thank goodness.

After this, I kept trying time after time to get a new plan, but it wasn't working.

Springtime was upon us, and with it, came something dreadful.

A new fish was added to the mix- a goldfish with hardly any personality. He wasn't nervous or confident, and he wasn't friendly or grumpy. Occasionally, he sneezed, it sounding very much like a laugh. This was what made me name him Chuckles at his ceremony. In my mind, he didn't seem to have a purpose in life…he just existed. Soon, I was about to find out exactly what his purpose was.

One day, a little human girl came into the office, and Phil greeted her with excitement. Then I realized that this was his niece whose birthday was coming up.

"Look what I have for you," he said to her.

I closed my eyes, totally uninterested. Then a noise, louder than a sonic boom shook me out of my peace.

"Wake up, fishy!" the girl's gaping mouth said. The horrible noise continued as she banged the outside of the tank.

I quickly retreated behind my fake skull, and saw that Deb, Bloat, Bubbles, Jacques, Gurgle, and Chuckles were taking refuge behind the fake shipwreck.

"You like the fish?" Phil said in a sweet voice. "Well guess what? You want a fish to take home with you?"

The girl finally stopped banging and looked up at her uncle. "Yea! Fishy, fishy!"

I looked around frantically. Who was going to be going with this monster? I really didn't want anybody to go, but thought that maybe if I went, I'd be able to escape. I floated up a little as Phil reached in with a plastic bag. However, he wasn't aiming for me. The bag swooped in and picked up Chuckles. He sneezed a little and waved to us. We all waved back at him.

"Bye, Chuckles!" Deb called.

"Enjoy your new life!" Bloat added.

Those sentences had a dual meaning.

As soon as Phil handed Chuckles' bag to this little girl, she began to shake it, violently. I turned away, unable to see this. The girl squished it, bounced it around and around, and continued to do so for a whole ten minutes. How could Phil allow her to do this to his fish? That, to this day, I still do not know. I saw Chuckles' little orange body slamming against the top repeatedly. At last, the girl stopped shaking and held up the bag, happily.

Phil snapped a picture of her. Then he happened to look in the bag. "Goodness, Darla, …the fish…!"

We all gasped and came out of our hiding places. Chuckles was upside-down, motionless…dead. I'd heard of fish dying before, my own mother and father had died, but I had never before seen an actual dead fish. These horrific images were seared into my mind. Even today, I can still see it happening with terrible accuracy. We all watched as Phil took the bag and emptied the dead body into the toilet. The solemn flushing noise echoed throughout our heads.

Suddenly, I knew something good had to come from this loss, and I knew what. My desperate mind suddenly thought that maybe if we all pretended to be dead, Phil would flush us all down the toilet, and we could escape. A contradictory thought popped up a minute later, and I knew that it was useless. Phil would probably wonder why all his loony fish had suddenly keeled over.

Then, I remembered the initial failed bag escape. If only we could get Phil to put us back into those bags, but the tank would have to be dirty. How to make the tank dirty? After thinking about this, I turned my attention to the filter on the side of the tank. That was what kept the tank from getting dirty every day. If there was some way to jam it up… I surfaced in the area between the water and the lid. Slowly, I moved close to the device and tried to peek in. I just caught a glimpse of a rotating blade before the water exit wheel scratched my snout and I fell back down into the water. The others asked me what I had been doing up there, and I had to make up something like I was going up there to try to get a better look at the toilet.

A few days later, a replacement came to us in the form of a starfish. We all instantly liked her. At the ceremony, she was named Peach, although I was nice enough not to do the bubble thing, since she had a disadvantage. The first extraordinary thing I noticed about Peach was that, like me, she could read. By sticking to the glass siding, she could read things that were even too far away for me to read. Through this, we became close friends. She was always telling me what customers were reading, and would read things for me that were too far away. She also came in handy because she was always stuck to the edge, and made a great spy.

The next year passed very slowly. However, I still had not accepted the fact that I'd probably be in this stupid little box for the rest of my life, and I thought I never would. There was still hope shining somewhere in me, and as long as I had that hope, I had a reason to keep going and keep on trying. I was a little off-target by thinking that my purpose in life was to liberate the tank fish. It might have been part of the reason for my existence, but I was soon to know the real reason I was here. Destiny was creeping up, and I was ready for it.


	7. Destiny, Stupidity, and Success

            Same old same old. Disney and Pixar owns Gill, Nemo, the tank gang, and others not in the preceding list, who are mine: Mr. Skimmer, Stroke, Niches, Chang, and Tanachi.

            Addressing a Few Possible Issues (AFPI. Because I like acronyms.): You may feel that the grief after the failed attempt with Nemo is a bit too much. Yeah, it probably is, but I thought it gave a good "feeling guilty" part. To be very strict, this chapter would be rated PG for um…bloody visions? This chapter comprises everything that was in the movie. I changed a few lines of dialogue, and added a few scenes of my own. I didn't change what initially happened in the movie, so don't get angry thinking I changed the movie. Once again, this is _long_!

Chapter 7: Destiny, Stupidity, and Success

            With everything now in place, the bright spot of light approached, bringing with it the ring of darkness. With this addition, I must change my purpose, and find the real reason for my life. Let's take a trip back in time. Let's go back to just when the horrific events were starting to take their toll. Now, let's change that. Even if you can't have a happy future, you'll work to create a happy future for the one you most care about.

            A similar awakening gave way to pitiful screaming, while all remained calm on the mysterious outside. The unusual racket outside reached my hole, and I opened one eye. The others were talking to someone. Was there another newbie?

            Suddenly, I heard Phil's muffled voice from the other side, and the terrifying mural landed right in front of this side. Seeing those glaring eyes and those sharp, glittering teeth triggered the memory. Bang! Bang, bang, bang! Chuckles' little orange body slammed against the sides. I closed my eyes again, not wanted to remember this again.

            This also gave way to panic. There was the fateful sucking noise and a small pop, followed by screaming. At last, I emerged from the dark corner, wondering what had happened.

            Then I saw him- the new boy, a little orange clownfish, struggling inside the corner device's pipe. This was his test, the Shock Rope Ship of his life. This time, it was a real test of bravery and determination. One of my philosophies came into play- that you must learn to be independent, and not rely on others all the time. Who knows how long the ones you rely on will be around? If they were gone tomorrow, what would you do?

            He yelled at me to help him.

            "No," I told him. "You got yourself in there, you can get yourself out."

            He continued to panic, wriggling in fear. Even when I gave him directions, to help out if he couldn't figure out the method, he was still doubtful. "But…but I have a bad fin!"

            Turning to the side, I showed him my torn right fin. "Never stopped me."

            The other six members were dumbfounded as they stared at us. With a little more encouragement, I got him to relax and concentrate. A few minutes later, he was free, all by himself, and he smiled at us. He had risen from the overhead hole and met a crowd of cheering horseshoe crabs.

            As I floated there in satisfaction, Peach popped off the siding and looked at me. "Wow," she commented. "From the ocean…just like you, Gill." The similarities didn't stop there, and I soon noticed that our bad fins were both on the right side.

            Normally, the welcoming ceremony was a few days after the arrival of the new fish, but I decided to push it to that night. If that little clownfish had enough bravery to get himself free of the tube, swimming through the bubble spray would be no sweat. This was the one that would alter my purpose and forever change my life. You could say that this was a crucial turning point, marking the end of horrible things and the beginning of an ascent back to happy times.

            I spent the rest of the day preparing for the nightly ceremony, making small headdresses for Gurgle and Bubbles. They even added a new touch, deciding to emerge from behind the tiki heads. I also spent a long time staring at the filter where he had gotten stuck and a way to jam it up came to me. The little fish was small enough, he could fit inside the space above the waterwheel, take a pebble, put it into the blade to stop it and go back out through the tube. Then it would get dirty again, Phil would put us in bags to clean it, and we could all roll out the window. I decided to wait until later to tell them about this new plan, and I thought after the ceremony would be the perfect time.

            That night, the little guy was sleeping in the hut structure when Jacques came and tossed pebbles on him to wake him up. As he made his way up, Bloat, Gurgle, and Bubbles emerged from the tiki heads, just like they were supposed to. At the halfway mark, Peach (attached to the side of the plastic volcano) and Deb hit him with leaves, "cleansing" him. At last he reached the top, where I floated on the other side, with the other four fish chanting in the background. For a while, I had contemplated trying to make a new headdress for myself, but I thought the filamentous extension was enough. Despite being able to escape from the tube, the little clownfish still looked scared. Oh well, I didn't mean to propose another test this early on, bit it was too late to turn back now.

            "State your name."

            "N-Nemo," he stuttered.

            Bloat swam up to perform his part of the ceremony. There was a small setback in the flow, when Jacques decided to take a nap and didn't turn on the volcano one cue. At first, little Nemo did look scared, but I could see him concentrating, like before, and he jetted straight through the bubbles with determination. He actually bumped my snout when he got to the other side. I wanted to laugh, but held it in and ended up smiling. I turned around to the others and "presented" him, giving him the nickname of Shark Bait. (I still have no idea where this came from. It might have been me connecting my life with his, with the sharks that attacked me, long ago.)

            After out little chanting sequence, which Gurgle would just not give up, I at last explained to them my new plan to jam the device and make it dirty. Most of them were skeptical, but little Nemo actually seemed excited. Perhaps it was because I had chosen him to carry out a special part of this mission. 

            The mission began the very next day. That morning I heard from the others that it was once again that horrible time of the year, autumn. Darla would be getting another present, this time little Nemo! This plan had to work. We had to get out with him and stop him from being killed. Later that day, we introduced him to Nigel, but we didn't get a lot of time to talk, since Phil quickly shooed him away. Thankfully, he went away for a while, so we had time to do this without worrying about anyone seeing us.

            First, the little clownfish swam up to the surface and hopped past the waterwheel into the device. I swam to the bottom, picked up one of the pebbles in my snout, and spit it into the opening. With some encouragement and instructions, he managed to place the pebble in between the rotating blades, screeching them to a halt. However, as we would soon learn, the pebble in the blades wasn't completely secured.

            As little Nemo squeezed through the tube on his way out, the pebble suddenly came loose, and the sucking resumed. The force was dragging the poor little fish back towards the spinning blades. Thinking fast, I managed to tear a piece of seaweed loose in a panic. We all shoved the piece up the tube as quickly as we could. By now, he was barely hanging on, the evil blades just a few inches below him, ready to turn him into sushi. Thankfully, just at the last minute, he managed to grab onto the stick and we heaved him out.

            For a long moment, we just laid in a heap, panting with shock that one of us had almost died. This wasn't Chuckles. Chuckles' death had not been such a devastating loss. It had a meaning, to set things up for this one that we couldn't afford to lose.

            Still shocked, Peach looked up at me from the top of the pile. "Gill, don't make him go back in there."

            For a moment, I froze then did the only thing I could think of to do in situations like this- swim. However, stuck in a small area like this, I could only go so far. I streamed back to my dark corner where I stayed for the next two days. Peach had struck a cord that I just couldn't deal with. If little Nemo had died in there at that moment, it would have been my fault. She was completely right.

            That night, while everyone was sleeping, I did something I hadn't done in about ten years: cry. I cried as I imagined, in a horribly realistic image, that special little clownfish being chopped to pieces in the spinning blades. Blood floated everywhere around the filter. Not only was I tyrant, I was almost a murderer. This was the ring of darkness surrounding his light. How had this happened? I wondered.

            One night, while they were sleeping, I squeezed out of the eyehole to think. I realized that a wish is a powerful thing. A wish can motivate people, bring about great change, make wonderful things happen, but a wish can also kill. Instances when I had shot myself out of the volcano and nearly suffocated, flopping helplessly on the floor floated back into my mind. This was when I began to contemplate the price of our freedom. Was freedom worth dying for? Was it worth the price of my life? Was it worth the price of the life of a young innocent? I had nearly slaughtered a young soul with my wish.

            I slowly glided up to the panel on the side and gazed at my worried reflection. A few minutes later, I could not stand the sight of myself anymore and covered my face with my fins. Look at what I had become. My reflection looked no different from when I had first arrived, but I saw something dramatically different.

            I had only wanted to help them, but I ended up harming them more than anything else. This happened because I was still in the mindset that my purpose in life was to liberate these fish. My purpose needed adjustment.

            On the third day after this failed attempt, the victim decided to approach me. Slowly, I looked up at his little body hovering just outside the eyehole. He actually looked a little sad. "Gill?" he said. "I'm sorry…"

            Immediately, I cut him off, stopping an unnecessary apology. "_I'm _sorry," I interrupted. "As much as I hate to admit it, I did a stupid thing that day. Nothing should be worth the price of your life. It doesn't matter if we never escape, what matters is that we're all safe…" The distress coming back in, my gills acted up and I coughed, for the first time in front of another tank member.

            Nemo swam in a little closer. "Are you okay, Gill?"

            At that moment, I almost felt like crying again. I couldn't believe that after all I'd put him through, he was still concerned about me. "Don't worry about me, Shark Bait," I told him. "You've got enough to worry about as it is."

            Nemo took a deep breath and gave me that determined look I'd seen in the tube and on the other side of the volcano. "It's okay, someday I'll go back in there and get it to really stop, and we can escape."

            "No," I instantly told him. "Whatever you do, don't go back in there. I don't want anything bad to happen to you."

            With that, he moved completely into the small space and bumped into my snout again. "I don't want anything bad to happen to you either."

            Fascinated, I felt something strange that I'd never felt before. I placed my left fin gently on top of him. "Do you have a home in the ocean?" I asked him.

            He smiled and nodded. "I live in the reef with my dad. Before I was taken away, I sort of had a fight with him. I want to see him again, and tell him that I didn't really hate him…" He drooped a little and sniffled.

            I rubbed his back with my fin, trying to comfort him, but at the same time I had a discovery. At last, I knew my real purpose. My purpose was to protect this little captured clownfish and make sure he returned to his home to continue his life. Soon I found myself giving him loving nudges and uttering words of encouragement. The tables had been turned. It was my turn to play the role of Niches.

            At last, a few minutes later, I went with him out of the simulated cavern to face the outside.

            As I swam by, Gurgle glared, disapprovingly. "Look who finally decided to show his sorry…"

            "Just shut up, guys," Peach said, popping off the side to look at him. "This has probably been hard for him to deal with."

            At first I wondered why Nemo had said he was worried about something happening to me.

            I realized, when Phil threw in some pellets, and he said, "Oh, there's Houdini. He's not only an escape artist, but he pulls a good disappearing act."

            As I ate pellets with the rest of the gang, I also realized that I had been upset and deep in thought, I hadn't come out to get anything to eat, and I hadn't gotten a full night of sleep in two days. Everyone thought I had been sick. Deep in my mind, I had thought that if I had died then it wouldn't have made a difference to anyone.

            Everything seemed to be going fine now. The next day passed easily and peacefully. During that time, I decided to give the little guy some fun. As Bloat swam by, I suddenly yelled, "Boo!" at him and he inflated in sudden defense. I turned to look at Gurgle and Nemo floating near the bottom. "Anyone for a game of pufferball?"

            Gurgle immediately swam up and persuaded Nemo to come with him. We had a great time whacking him around in a game of three-way pufferball. I tried to only hit Bloat gently with my snout, since the little clownfish was much smaller and didn't have enough strength to really whack him.

            That night, Nemo was a little afraid of sleeping alone, so I let him sleep in the fake skull with me. At one point, while we were talking, I guess there wasn't as much oxygen floating through the little area, and I coughed for a couple of minutes.

            Nemo looked up at me in concern. "Why do you always cough like that?" he asked.

            "Well…" I was about to make up some other strange excuse, but I couldn't find it in my heart to lie to this special little clownfish. "I haven't told this to the other guys, but I have asthma."

            He looked a little confused. "What's as-ma?"

            "I have a problem with my gills, sometimes they tighten up and I have a hard time breathing. That's why I was named Gill."

            Nemo frowned. "You were named after your problem? If my parents had named me Fin, I would be mad at them."

            I smiled. He had a bright way of thinking, and I knew he had great potential. I wanted to teach him how to read and write, but there wasn't enough time for that. It took weeks, and we didn't have weeks.

            A few minutes after lying on the bottom, trying to sleep, his voice broke out. "I can't get to sleep. I'm afraid of…her." With time growing short, the realization had come back to us that Darla would be here soon to pick up…and most likely, kill Nemo. The poor little guy had a right to be frightened.

            Suddenly, I got a brilliant idea. At least this time, it wasn't dangerous. "Do you want to hear a story?"

            Little Nemo was pleasantly surprised. "Really? You'll tell me a bedtime story?"

            "Sure," I said. "I do know one story." I began to tell him the strangely magical story in that destroyed book. Even though I had not recalled it for a year or so, I still had it memorized, word for word. About halfway through the story, I realized I was talking to nobody. He had already fallen asleep, happily on the bottom. In a way, this was a good thing, since I hadn't found out how the story actually ended.

            Satisfied, I turned around and slowly drifted off to sleep beside him. Suddenly it was two days later. Now, if this really happened, I would be questioning how I jumped ahead in time two days, but in a dream, there is no questioning, since anything can happen. Also in a dream, everything seems real, as if it were really happening. I was floating near the front of the office side. The others were around me, although their faces were blurry. However, what was clear was that I had failed in my one true purpose. Bang! Bang, bang, bang! A little orange body slammed against the sides of the bag repeatedly. It kept slamming over and over again, until at last the little body was stiff and motionless. In my mind I thought, it's only Chuckles again, that memory is playing again, but it wasn't. I stared at the dead orange body…and it had white stripes. No, it couldn't be…I began to shake and suddenly I burst out in a scream.

            The world went black and suddenly changed back into the interior of the fake skull. I was wide awoke and panting. It had only been a nightmare. I had to keep repeating that in my head. "It was only a nightmare, it was only a nightmare…"

            My screaming had awakened little Nemo. He glanced sideways at me. "Are you okay, Gill? Did something happen?"

            I caught my breath and replied, "Everything's okay, nothing happened. Go back to sleep, Shark Bait."

            He turned over and seemed to sleep again, although I wasn't sure if he was sleeping.

            There was no way I could go back to sleep after a jolt like that. I squeezed out the eyehole and began pacing around the darkened tank. I couldn't let that happen. Somehow, I needed to get the little clownfish out of here before that day came. The big question was: how? On my second trip around, I happened to glance up at the filtering device. No. No more filtering device. That was out of the question. How else could we get him away from here? We could hide him somewhere in the tank. Maybe in the fake shipwreck, or the volcano…No, Phil would just go crazy, tear up the whole tank looking for him, and eventually find him. I spent the rest of the night swimming around in circles, trying to come up with a foolproof method for his escape that didn't endanger anybody's life. I was unsuccessful, and got nothing for it except a pair of blurry, tired eyes. However, the next day would be a monumental day when things at last started to look up for our mini hero.

One thing that surprised me was that the little guy always seemed to hang around me. The others got pretty used to seeing us side by side. Even Phil noticed this togetherness and laughed, saying, "Oh look, Houdini's got a little friend."

Once when we were swimming together, I swerved over and gave him another nudge.

"Why do you poke me like that?" he asked me.

"It's not a poke," I explained. "It's a nudge. It's just the was we Moorish idols show our affection."

Now the little guy was even more confused. "What's affection?"

Ice formed around me and I froze in place, trying to think of a good definition. "Um…it means you like someone else and want to be with that person."

A few minutes later, he swerved to his side and tapped the side of my snout.

"Huh?" I asked. "What was that?"

Nemo frowned. "I was giving you a nudge."

I couldn't keep the corners of my mouth down.

On this very important turning point, we were swimming together, as always. Suddenly, as we neared my side, there was a loud smack, knocking the other three prisoners out of their complex conversation about nothing. Peach tried to make casual conversation with the bird, but he was a bird on a mission.

"No…" he said. "Nemo. Where's Nemo?"

I pushed the little clownfish up to meet Nigel, although he looked a little frightened. That was when the awkward bird began a tale I cannot even begin to describe. It was full of amazing feats. It turns out this little guy's concerned father had done many heroic things looking for him. These included battling three sharks, swimming through a cloud of jellyfish, and even venturing into the deep, dark beyond. I thought I had been an adventurer, when the only dangerous endeavor I took on was Shock Rope Ship. A little thing like that couldn't hold a candle to his accomplishments.

At first little Nemo was doubtful. He had told me once that his father was frightened of the ocean. Well, he had apparently gotten over his fear. Inspiration surged up, and at first I wasn't aware of it. Suddenly, the determined little clownfish streamed down to the bottom and grabbed a pebble.

Then it struck me over the head- he was trying to jam up the filter again! Bloody visions flashed in front of me and I swam after him as fast as I could. Unfortunately, I was going a little too fast; I couldn't stop and went reeling into the side panel. "Shark Bait!" I yelled to him. "Don't go back in there!!!"

The other members rushed over to help. They also began frantically calling his name, trying to persuade him to come back down. It didn't work, and he just spit the pebble past the waterwheel and jumped in himself, as always.

Immediately, my mind flashed back to last time and I streamed down, pulling up a fake seaweed stalk. We worriedly shoved the stalk up the tube, afraid he would get stuck again as the whirring noise came to a stop. My panicked little mind was unable, both of these times, to figure out an alternate exit path. I hadn't thought of it last night, since I had blocked the filtering device out of anything that came to mind.

The clever clownfish decided to take a leap out of the box, back out through the waterwheel. As we looked up the tube, screaming his name, he answered from the back. "I'm over here."

We froze, turned around, and lo and behold, there he was, the whirring was stopped, and he was unharmed. We all broke into jubilant cheers and shouts. Gurgle zoomed up to give him a hug, but shoved him away upon realizing our new condition. We only had two days left, but we still needed to be wary. We ought to blow the joint a day before, so that we were far away by the day of terror.

I gave a speech to the other members, advising Jacques to stop his obsessive cleaning, and the others to be as dirty as possible. Nemo floated beside me, trying to look important. I let him, since it was him that was going to save us all.

It was the day before, and everything seemed to be going fine. I had to remind Jacques a few times not to clean. For a while I worried about my asthma. In this clouded environment, I wouldn't be able to breathe. Eventually, I got used to it, and it didn't present any real problems. Bubbles did have a problem with his treasure chest, and I had to pull him away from it a couple of times. Deb cried for a while, saying that sometimes her sister disappeared, and she didn't know why. Basically, it was a filthy madhouse, but then again, it was a madhouse before. Gurgle was pacing around, screaming. Now I understood why Nigel had given a strange look to Bloat, calling him rude. I had to get away from him every chance I got. Maybe I shouldn't have said that thing about being as dirty as possible.

Later that day, we all held our breath as Phil popped open the lid and reached into the tank. At last I heard him say what I'd been waiting for him to say. "I'm going to clean the fish tank."

Cheers went up among my cellmates. Little Nemo popped out of a fake ship hole, covered with bubbles and joined in the celebration. However, the bagging didn't come that evening.

At last it was nighttime and we had no choice but to sleep. I tried not to worry too much about it that night. I had to remain calm, I told myself. At least I had to make it _look _as if I were calm. If I panicked, the little clownfish would also panic and that couldn't happen. I took a few deep breaths and relaxed my body as Nemo snuggled next to me. Somehow I knew that even if I never got out of this place and back where I belonged, I could never abandon my new duties as a guardian fish. It would have to be tomorrow. This was cutting it close, but I knew Phil wouldn't leave us all dirty when his niece arrived. He wouldn't want to leave a bad impression. That's what's wrong with most people. They do nice things, not because they are nice people, but because it makes them _look _like nice people. I drifted off to sleep, feeling contented that tomorrow I would save him and we could at last be free.

The next morning, I popped out of the eyehole, stretched, yawned, and screamed. The floating green substances were gone, the side panels were sparkling, and everything was suddenly clean! My mine raced. How? How had this happened? It was impossible! Phil couldn't have cleaned the tank while we were sleeping. I would have woken up if he were cleaning it while we were still snoozing in the fake skull. I also would have woken up if he had put me in a bag while I was sleeping.

Nemo glided out behind me. "Hey, what happened to the gunk?"

Going a little frantic, I glanced around for the others. "I don't know! What _did _happen to the gunk? Maybe we were just dreaming gunk! I just woke up, and all the gunk was gone!!!"

Gurgle and Deb approached up from behind the ship and the volcano. "Hey, what's the matter here?" Gurgle asked. "Why are you flipping out like that?"

I was about to answer, but Nemo answered for me. "The gunk is gone!" he cried.

"Oh yeah," Deb said, looking around. "I didn't even notice that."

Now I was thinking hard. "We know it's gone, the question is _why _is it gone? Phil couldn't have cleaned last night. The filter should still be clogged unless the pebble came loose…" I swam around in a few circles, hoping that would get my mind working better. "…But even if it came loose, one night wouldn't be enough for it to clear away all the gunk…"

As I looked around everywhere, trying to find a clue, my eyes fell upon something above, near my corner. It hadn't been there before. This was a new filter, a more powerful filter. Technology had fallen upon our humble box. Normally, technology is a useful thing, helping you to be more productive in your work, helping you to feel and function better. However, technology gives these benefits only to the human race. (At least this was how I felt at this time, although future experiences would prove me wrong.) Technology was the culprit, hindering us more than anything. This cutting-edge device, the Aquascum, was a new cleaner, maintaining a "healthy environment" and "scanning"the inside, recording the temperature and environmental condition. Also, as Peach told us from reading the manual on the table, it was even supposed to extend our life within the box. Supposedly, fish like us are known to die all the time in our boxes. Gee…I wonder why.

Quickly I began spinning my mental gears trying to find a way to get into bags before the time arrived. If only humans could hear fish talk. Then I could scare Phil by yelling at him to put us all in bags right then. Nothing seemed as if it could work.

My train of thought was broken off by a loud slamming and tinkling noise. The others all screamed, and I knew it was too late.

Mere minutes later, the familiar sonic boom rang through everyone's ears. Bubbles, Gurgle, Bloat, and Deb hid behind the fake ship where they usually hid. I slipped back and endured the attack as I blocked Nemo's ears. Poor Peach got the full-frontal blast and nearly fell off the siding. Thankfully, Phil called her in before she could do much more damage. However, I knew that her being called in was just the beginning of the damage. As he sat her down and made preparations, I swam around, trying to think of a salvation plan.

Just as I began to turn around to grab the little guy and fling him into some hiding place, Phil swooped down with a big green net. This wasn't the same kind of net the men on the boat had used to capture me, and I instantly saw this one's flaw. Without another thought in my mind, I jumped into the net and began to push it towards the ground. I called to the others to do the same. Eventually, the rest of the gang hopped in, and the force was too much, yanking the handle out of Phil's grip. There was a small celebration following this. In the back of our minds, everyone wanted to believe that his salvation had been achieved. This was only a far-fetched wish, and we just didn't want to admit it.

Only a few seconds later, that wily Phil grabbed a bag and scooped up Nemo from behind, while he was unaware. For a moment, he plopped him down on the counter.

"Help!" he yelled. "Help me!"

"Roll!" I screamed to him, gesturing towards the window. "Hurry up and roll out the window!"

Thankfully, he heard and began to push, slamming against the crinkled side with all his might. He was approaching the edge…getting closer. I smiled, feeling that he would be able to escape for sure and go back to his heroic father, that I had succeeded in my purpose.

The happy moment plummeted as Phil suddenly came back out and grabbed the bag mere centimeters away from the edge.

I guess the plucky little clownfish had learned a thing or two from my fast reactions and decided to flip over and pretend he was dead. I was ecstatic with his clever trick and waved happily as he was carted off towards the toilet. The others all followed my lead, calling happy farewells.

Phil changed direction- towards the trash bucket! We went from calling, "See you later!" to screaming "Nooooooo!"

However, time and pure coincidence were on our side. At that particular moment, Nigel slammed into the window, holding Nemo's father and his friend in his bill. Thankfully, a sea bird and two lost fish were enough to distract Phil from plopping our poor friend into dark peril. He stood up, set the bag down on the tray and went to chase Nigel from his office. During this ruckus, Marlin and I might have caught a few glimpses of each other, but we didn't actually meet until much later.

This was when I realized that putting that bag on the tray was a _bad _thing to do. Darla reached down and plucked him from his safe harbor, like a gigantic monster. Suddenly my nightmare was living before my eyes. His little orange body slammed against the upper and lower portions. Bang, bang, bang! My first reaction was to pinch myself, thinking I was only dreaming again. Then it smacked me over the head the same way it had the day before. This was not a dream- this was real! I had to do something to stop this!

All my former escape plans flashed through my mind. The cover…was off! Phil had left the cover off after he had scooped up little Nemo! Instantly I thought of the volcano-cannon. When we had tried to shoot for the sink, Deb had ended up in the chair where Phil's awful niece was right now. If there were some way to intercept her and make her drop the bag…A perfect plan suddenly flashed through my mind and I zoomed up to the plastic volcano and stuck myself into the tip. The frantic residents all looked at me like I was crazy. "Hurry up!" I yelled at them. "Tilt this thing, just like before."

Bloat got onto one end and pushed it against the glass as he inflated.

"Ring of Fire!"

Jacques, not knowing what else to do, jumped onto the wheel and began scuttling for his life.

In a huge bubble blast, I shot from the disguised cannon. For a moment, I was as frightened as I had been in Shock Rope Ship. I was flying through the air. A missed aim could mean certain death. If I ended up on the floor, Phil might step on me and crush me. If I ended up on the other counter, no one might notice me and I'd suffocate and die.

Somehow I knew everything would be okay as I made a perfect arc through the sky. I smiled, because in my head I knew this had to work, and if I didn't…I'd at least get to spend my afterlife with little Nemo in that beautiful pond in the sky. I laughed, thinking, "No, Mom, I'm not a fighting fish. No, Miss Customer Lady, I'm not an angelfish. No, Tanachi, I'm not a Moorish idol. I'm a flying fish."

I slammed against a surface, but it was scratchy, bristly, and a bright orange color. I heard Darla scream incredibly close and the surface began to move. Then I realized where I had landed. With all the strength I could muster, I flung myself up and slammed back down into her scalp. Once just wasn't enough and I repeated this several times.

At last she went crazy, yelling, "Get that fish out of my hair!" and dropped Nemo's bag onto the tray. With a gentle pop, it exploded, filling the tray with water.

Now it was time. I flung myself off of her head and perfectly landed in the tray beside him. Various cleaning instruments poked below us, and Nemo was sitting on a long, two-sided one.

"Gill," he said to me as we lied there, panting. "Thank you for…everything."

I gave him a little smile, although I was holding back coughs. "It was nothing. Good-bye, Shark Bait. Go back to your family." With that, I took a big jump and slammed hard onto the other side of the device. The little clownfish flew perfectly upwards and back down into the little cleaning sink beside the tray.

"Aaaugh!" Darla screamed. "Where'd the fishy go?!

I rested in the shallow pool of the tray's water, still panting. Now I didn't care if I died and ran out of oxygen. I had succeeded in my one true purpose in life. As I lied there, beaming and choking, Phil came over to examine the chaos now that it had died down.

"Oh well," he said. "Looks like the little one's gone." Then he gazed down at me and chuckled. "And Houdini escapes again!"

I relaxed my naturally flailing body as Phil carefully lifted me out of the tray and placed me back into the loony bin. I took a few deep breaths and tried not to cough as Phil placed the cover back on the tank. The other members all glided up around me, congratulating me, or wondering whether little Nemo would make it or not.

"You shouldn't have done that," Peach lectured me from her spot on the wall. "You could have killed yourself, but…we're all glad you did."

As I gazed out the window, the world seemed new and brighter than it had been before. I thought it was terrible that we would probably never make it out of this tank, I felt disappointed that this would be the rest of my life. However, for a moment, I felt like I was finally home, and that was a feeling I had never before experienced. At that point I knew it wasn't certain that little Nemo made it back to his father, but in my mind, I knew that he had. I had had the wonderful pleasure of being his guardian fish, and delivering him safely to where he belonged. In a way, I felt as if I had helped myself. What I didn't know was that I was looking right into a clear window- a crystal clear insight into the future. They say that good friends are never far apart. The ones you love will always be with you. Now, with this wonderful insight, the world seemed a beautiful, fascinating place to be. I would be there to see it.        


	8. A Fork in the Waterway

            Gill, Nemo, and the tank gang and all others not in the preceding list belong to Disney and Pixar. The others- Stroke, Mr. Skimmer, Niches, Chang, and Tanachi are mine, mine, mine, mine, mine…

            AFPI (if you read chapter 7, you know what that stands for.) #1 I don't know if they have game shows in Australia. I would assume they do… they probably don't have Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune, and the fish wouldn't know about these shows, but I just use it to describe the shows they watched. #2 Yeah, shooting rocks at the Aquascum to break it has been done a hundred times before, but…I thought of it. #3 The pieces of the harbor fence were tied together, but they might be nailed together too… #4 My "secret" about Jacques is all wrong, since if he lived in the ocean near there, why would he be French? But I don't remember him saying in the movie where he came from.

Chapter 8: A Fork in the Waterway

            All of our lives seemed to settle down and return to a monotonous routine of discussing complex topics with simple knowledge and waiting patiently for the next TV special. I managed to keep my head out of the mush by writing random phrases on the side of the ship with whatever gunk I managed to scrape off the very bottom under the rocks. With the horrible Aquascum sucking up all my natural resources, I had to take whatever I could get.

            The Aquascum was a major concern to me. If only the new technology wasn't there. The problem was, I couldn't find any way to sabotage it. This was possibly why Phil installed it in the first place. Although, how could he have known that we sabotaged the filter? In his world this is known as "bad luck" or "everything I touch just breaks!" Also in his world, it is a common fact that fish are stupid and Houdini purposely jamming up the filter was simply unheard of.

            I amused myself daily by watching quiz shows, such as Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. I beat all the contestants and laughed at them.

            Bloat and Gurgle were giving me strange looks. "How do you know all this stuff?" they asked me several times.

            "I know how to read," I simply answered.

            Sometimes, if I were in the mood, I would compete with Peach. She didn't care if I beat her most of the time. We had a fun time guessing.

            The game shows weren't on every day, or Phil just refused to put it on that channel at a certain time. I wished I could jump from the plastic volcano again and steal the remote control, but it probably wouldn't work underwater. I would suspend it with wire just above the surface and we could jump up and push the button when we wanted to change the channel. Then, I imagined everybody fighting over the remote and getting so riled up, they would knock it over, into the water and it would short-circuit and zap us all. I was beginning to have foresight for disasters such as this.

            Giving up on my remote control invention, I then began focusing on a way to sabotage the new Aquascum. So far, there was no way to get into it and hit its inner workings. I relied on Peach to tell me everything from the manual she could remember, and there wasn't any useful information. Finally, one day, I just decided to shoot rocks at it for fun.

            One time while I was shooting rocks, Deb approached me from behind. "Do you have a cold, Gill?" I turned around with a rock in my mouth and she began nodding. "Oh, I see now." The only thing she was seeing was my back, occasionally ricocheting forward and expelling a rock at the Aquascum. From an outside view, it did look a lot like I had been sneezing.

            After about twenty rocks I shot at it, I began to see a dent in the side. I hoped it would at least hinder it. A few minutes later, the normal red beam shot out of its center and did its rounds. The voice that came out was scratchy and garbled. At least I had succeeded in breaking the voice. As days went on, I began to see it breaking down even more. Eventually the filter hole stopped working, and since there was nothing else to clean it up, Gurgle and Jacques started going crazy talking about the "new gunk".

            "Gill broke the Aquascum," Deb explained to them.

            Bloat gave me a strange look. "I thought you said that all you wanted to do was get the little guy out and you didn't care if we never escaped."

            I gave them my best aquatic shrug. "Well, if you can find a way out, then why not try it? At least this one doesn't involve someone being shot out of the plastic volcano."

            They gave me knowing looks. I knew this would work, and…it did. I seemed to be reliving the events of the days just before the little guy escaped and I tasted the second success of my life. This was the last chance we would be getting. At first, I thought that maybe Phil would simply buy another Aquascum, but that was impossible. He was pretty loaded, but not _that_ rich.

            As I suspected, a few days later, he looked into the tank and got a rude awakening. "What…? That Aqua-thing was supposed to do the cleaning for me, unless it broke down…" He popped the top off and reached in to check the Aquascum. When he saw the dent, he sighed. "What is wrong with the tank cleaning devices lately?" he yanked it off the side, a little too forcefully and made us tip a little. "Now I got to go through the whole thing of putting the fish in bags and scrubbing out the algae…" He made it sound like such a laborious task. Well, excuse me Mr. Giant with two hands. I can do more than him, and I'm only a scarred Moorish idol a fraction of his side with half a fin missing.

            Anyway, my heart leapt when Phil swept down into that water, bagging me, and then Bloat, Deb, Bubbles, Gurgle, and lastly Peach. He could save her for last since she didn't need as much water to survive. I led the way out the window. It was a long drop from the trees, but the bags easily bounced along gently without breaking. The biggest challenge came in the crossing of the street. We had to quickly push ourselves across the tar before the red light changed and we were squashed. This is why we decided to go across individually. I went first, followed by Bloat, Gurgle, Bubbles, Deb, and lastly Peach. I was worried about her, since she's a starfish and is much slower than any of us. Thankfully, she made it across in one piece, although complaining about the length of traffic lights.

            As soon as she plopped into the water beside us, we all gave up a cheer. At first, I could scarcely believe what had happened. This was what I had been waiting for all this time- two years. I had waited two years for this, and it passed by so quickly. A moment of silent gratitude, amazement, and confusion passed among us.

            Our peace and solitude was broken by none other than Bloat, the rudest in the brotherhood and master of the bananagrass. This was when all murk and chaos broke loose.

            "Precisely," Peach added. "Gill, why didn't you think of this before?"

            I loved that girl, but she always had a habit of hitting my nail right on the head and making me feel like an idiot. Why _hadn't _I thought of this beforehand? Here we were, finally out of the tank and free in the harbor, but we were stuck in plastic bags! How were we going to get out of the crinkly spheres before we ran out of fresh oxygen and suffocated?

            Bloat puffed up to ball form, but his spikes weren't enough to penetrate the sides of the bag. Gurgle whacked against his plastic, Bubbles went crazy and pushed it everywhere, Jacques tried to poke it with his pointy legs, Peach suctioned the sides, Deb stared at it absentmindedly, and I stabbed it with my long snout. None of our efforts seemed to do any good.

            "What are we going to do?" Gurgle cried. "Just float out to sea?"

            Everyone turned and looked straight at me. "Well?"

            "What?" I cried. "Why are you all staring at me?"

            "_You're _the leader," Deb reminded me. "_You _always get us out of situations like this."

            My eyes widened. They were once again looking to me for guidance, and I had no guidance to give them.

            "C'mon, big guy," Bloat urged me. "Think!"

            I shivered and turned around. "Well I can't think very well with you all staring at me and pressuring me like that." Frantically looking around, I set upon the side harbor barrier. It was made out of wood. Normally, when the humans put pieces of wood together to make things, they used a nail to hold them there. Sometimes, if a human made a mistake, a nail would be sticking out of the wood the wrong way. This end was very sharp. Maybe there was this sort of nail sticking out of the harbor siding. This was the only hope I had, and we had to at least try it. I floated along the siding, and the others followed like mindless drones.

            Finally, Peach spoke up. "Hey, where are we going?"

            I wouldn't answer until I thought I knew where there was a nail. Suddenly, I saw one up ahead and jetted straight for it.

            When the others caught up, Gurgle immediately began complaining. "Could you _please _tell us what's going on?"

            "This," I said, pointing to the protruding nail end. "May help us get out." I backed up and carefully positioned myself so that the top of the bag would slam into the pointy nail. I might get my "beautiful" filamentous extension ripped off, but it was better than dying. At last, with all my strength, I zoomed forward, as fast as my ripped fin and my cramped tail would let me. Just as I predicted, the nail drove right into the plastic. I pulled and pulled in the opposite direction until a hole appeared in the top of the bag. Once there was a hole, I pushed and pushed, making the hole bigger and bigger, until there was enough room for me to poke out.

            My body hit the outside water with a small splash. For a split second, I felt like whooping with joy, but I suddenly realized I had to get the others out of their bags before they died. The water wasn't very pure, but it felt so much better than the stale tank water. I let it filter through my gills for a moment before shooting up to talk to the others.

            "You are a genius, man," Bloat happily told me. "I'm sorry I ever doubted you."

            "Alright then," I replied. "For your unfaltering loyalty, brother Bloat, you may go first." He rolled himself over and I lined him up with the nail. "Okay, now keep low and swim fast, straight for that nail. Once it catches, keep pushing until you rip a big hole in the top."

            With a small push, the big brown puffer sped along straight for the nail. He was going so fast, it made a hole upon impact. That's the problem with being a Moorish idol. We're not built for speed.

            Only a few minutes later, I was helping Deb line up for her big escape. She was afraid that this would hurt her sister, and I had to keep reassuring her that both of her would be fine. When the nail hit the top of her bag, she was so light she almost ricocheted backwards. With a little more push, the nail at last ripped its hole and she popped out beside Bloat.

            Jacques came next and this time I realized that we needed a bigger push for smaller members. Bloat and Deb joined my initial push, and his bag broke upon impact.

            Bubbles screamed when we pushed him into the nail, but he was delighted to get out and explore the different bubbles of the ocean.

            We didn't have to push Gurgle as much as we thought we would. For a little fish like him, he had gigantic fins and was capable of moving at very high speeds. I can be fast, but nowhere near as fast as him. I'm a bigger fish and need more propelling power. This is hard with natural thin Moorish idol fins, but with half of one missing, it's even harder.

            Finally, popping Peach's bag was no trouble. The only problem was that she immediately began falling when she popped. Thankfully, Bloat and Gurgle caught her as she dropped.

            At last, we swam down into the harbor. I looked back at the last few plastic bag remains spiraling down to nothingness. We were free at last. We had tossed off our chains, I had picked the lock, and now we could run away from our prison to the bright, beautiful world beyond.

            Now, Bloat and Peach turned to look back at me. "So where are we going?" Peach asked.

            Smiling, I answered. "We're going wherever we want to go."

            "What kind of answer is that?" Gurgle argued.

            This was when it hit me. I was completely on my own now. I could leave them at any time. The problem was, I couldn't leave them. What would they do? They'd have no idea where to go and what to do. They'd probably either be eaten or scooped back up by a fisherman. It was my duty to save these poor lost fish…wasn't it? This was exactly how I had thought in the past, and hadn't I been wrong? An argument began in my head, as if I suddenly had a split personality, and the two personalities were waging war. But, the second one argued, I only had to adjust my purpose because of Nemo, now that he was gone, wouldn't my purpose be to save these fish? No, the first one returned the ball, what about _me_? I had a definite feeling that my home was not here with this group of fish. If I stayed with them, it was most likely a permanent stay. Another volley- where would I go? If I didn't stay with them, where would I go to find a home? Back to the reef?

            At last, a soft voice speaking next to me interrupted my mental tennis match. "_Et ensuite, vous tournez gauche…_"

            "Huh? Jacques?" I stared over at the little shrimp in Deb's fins. He seemed to be muttering something in French. "What did you say?" I turned to face him.

            He sighed and finally muttered, "And then you go left…"

            "Go left? Are you giving directions?"

            At last he hung his head and spoke to us as a group. "Um, well…yes. They're directions to the rock area where I used to live."

            "Where you used to live?" Bloat was in on it now. "You mean you didn't come from a store like us?"

            Now Peach looked a little bit up from Bloat and Gurgle's fins. "That's right, he never really told us where he came from. We just immediately assumed that he came from a store. He could have actually come from the ocean like Gill and Nemo." She looked over at him. "Did you?"

            Jacques took a deep breath. "_Oui_."

            "Why didn't you tell us before?"

            He shrugged his little front legs. "I just forgot that's all."

            Then, Peach smiled. "That's great! You can lead us to your old home and we can all live there together!"

            "What's it like?" Bloat asked. "Is it spacious?"

            "Is it clean?" Gurgle added.

            "_Oui_, _oui_, both of zees."

            Deb smiled and hugged the little shrimp closer. "Than what are we waiting for? Let's go there!" She shot off, holding him in her arms, with him giving her directions. Bubbles zoomed off after her. Gurgle and Bloat followed suit with Peach hanging between them. Suddenly, she yanked on their fins and they dragged around.

            This sudden revelation made everything remarkably clear to me. The tennis match was over, and it was a draw. I knew now what I had to do. It was time for us to split, time for another section of my life to come to a close.

            "Gill, aren't you coming with us?"

            "Nah," I told her. "I think it's time we went our separate ways. It's been great guys."

            The others all turned around in shock upon hearing this. "He's leaving?" Deb said quietly. "After all he did for us?"

            "He's sick of us," Gurgle whispered. "He wants to get away from us now that he can."

            That wasn't the case, naturally. (Well maybe a little. It's not that I don't like them, I just don't want to be with them the rest of my life.) "Maybe we'll meet up again sometime!" I called to them. "Bye, everyone, and enjoy your new life!"

            The others all lifted their fins or front arms and moved them about in a circle.

            I began to swim away in the other direction. As I went, I decided to turn around and give them one last wave with my pure side. We waved and waved for another couple of moments.

            Then the group of fish that had been my life for the past two years slowly disappeared into the depths, heading for their own destinies. What happened to them still remains a mystery. Although I like to think that they reached Jacques' homeland and are living there right now in peace. Just like I liked to think that Nemo got home to his father, even though I had no way of knowing what had happened. Maybe Gurgle never got over his fear of germs, maybe Bubbles never got over his infatuation with bubbles, and maybe Deb never found out that her sister was really her reflection. As long as they were free and happy, none of that mattered. Tucking them away somewhere in my heart, I turned and began swimming.

            I had not tasted the wonderful ocean water in so long, and I suddenly wondered why I hadn't appreciated it more when I had lived here. I had taken it for granted that I would always be in this clear water. I took a long, deep breath, and a calming and soothing feeling passed through my body. Now, I still had no idea where my destination was, but I knew that wherever my place in the world was, I belonged in the ocean. I began swimming away from that place, as far away from that place as I could. It all felt so familiar and it felt so right. This was freedom. This was my freedom to go on a long-distance swim to who-knows-where and do whatever I wanted on the way.

            At last I saw the boat bottoms fade away and my hope soared.  Surely I was now headed far away from the harbor and far away from this city.

            A half an hour and fifty bubbles later, I stopped in my tracks. It seemed odd that I had been swimming for so long and the murky pea-colored water didn't seem to be getting any less thick and green. Just where was I anyway? I dove a little deeper into the sea, spiraling down and into the unknown depths.

            As much as I had developed into a sharp, alert adult Moorish idol, I still was unable to notice the camera device submerged near a rock on the side.

            A voice over an intercom clicked on. "Hey…what's that, an angelfish?"

            I quickly glanced around in a panic. There were a few other fat, grayish fish swarming around me, but they didn't seem to be speaking to me. "Um…hello?" I asked them. They gave me funny looks and swam away.

            A different voice now joined in the conversation. "No, that's a Moorish idol. What's it doing in the sea around here? We better get it in before something happens to it."

            At last, I noticed that the voice was coming from beside me. After being in a tank with sounds vibrating off the panels and little girls creating sonic booms, I had a hard time finding the source of sounds. (I know you think I'm just making excuses, but it's true.)

            Anyway, when I at last turned around, it was too late. A huge net was sweeping down, a big mouth of doom. I yelled and tried to jet away, but as I mentioned before, fish like me aren't that fast. The net scooped me up like a handful of jacks. Immediately, I began to swim downwards with all my might. It was no use, since this net was ten times the size of Phil's and operated by machine.

            "No!" my heart screamed. I had at last returned to my home, just to be imprisoned once again. Would I never get to find where I really belonged? Would I never find a place as welcome and comforting as the ocean? I needed a place that provided that beautiful soothing feeling ocean water gave me. There was no place on land that could give me this. I closed my eyes and let the tears come. I was now convinced these idealistic dreams were just that- dreams. I was the one that helped the others escape from human clutches, and this was my reward? Whatever happened, I thought fate had sealed it that I was to die, oppressed in a box.


	9. Zebraglo

Ditto. Stroke, Mr. Skimmer, Niches, Chang, Tanachi, Maisey, and Rosie, exc. are my characters. Everyone else belongs to Disney and Pixar.

AFPI: There are most likely huge mistakes throughout this whole chapter since once again I didn't do any research. I really know zip about everything in this chapter. If I offend anyone with any inaccuracies, I'm REALLY REALLY sorry! For a while I considered just deleting this whole chapter, but it has a good meaning. The whole point is to give a different perspective on tank life. I just hope it isn't _too_ bad…

This chapter might be rated PG instead of G for a little…nudity? But, it's a child that's naked, and only for a second, so does it really count? Well, just to be safe…

This chapter is dedicated to Maze, a fish who was my real-life inspiration for the character Maisey. He died on April 7, 2004.

Chapter 9: Zebraglo

When I opened my eyes again, I stared into the monstrous face of another man. Although he looked worried, Tanachi had too. I was floating, trapped in the net on the top of a big pool inside of some building.

A second man, wearing a uniform came up beside him. "Didya reel the fish in?"

"Yes," the first man replied. "But I wonder if something's wrong with her. She doesn't seem to be moving much." He kneeled next to the pool's edge and looked down at me. "What's wrong there, little girl?"

Little girl? He was calling me a girl! I couldn't help it and burst out laughing. As I laughed, I jumped about and splashed him in the face. That should teach him not to call me a girl.

I expected him to get angry and say I was a freaky fish, or something like that. Instead, this man began laughing at my little attack. "Heh…it must be a boy. He got mad when I called him a girl."

The freeze came again, and he went back to worrying if there was something wrong with me. It struck me with fright- was this breaking the rules of animal-human communication? I didn't think so.

Slowly, the man reached out and lifted me just a few inches out of the water. The only reason I let him do it was because I knew if he tried anything, I could jump back into the water. My plan was that when he tried to take me somewhere else, I would jump and twist my body so that I fell just on the side of the net and I could swim on out away from prison. It didn't work that way.

The man turned me over and set his face to a concerned expression. "Well it's not hurt, but it _was _hurt at some time. I'm amazed it didn't die with scars like these. Poor little fella." My body shivered as his finger ran down the scars on my nose, my eye, and my neck area. Then he took my ripped fin between two fingers and held it out to examine it. I felt a bit like I was going for a checkup. Hovering above a pool and being poked by an unknown human was bad, but at least I was not in a container, slamming against the side.

My quickly devised plan went caput as this man was clearly experienced and knew how to hold fish without them getting away. He dunked me in the water for a moment, and placed his other hand on top. If he had squeezed just a little harder, I would've been able to pop out of his hands, but he knew how to hold me just right.

To my dismay, he plopped me into a little tank, a bit smaller than the one at Phil's office. "Don't worry," he called. "I'll be back in a little while to fix you up." I heard his boots squish away as he went out through a door in the back of the room.

I gazed at the pool and sized up the distance. No, I wouldn't be able to make it if I jumped out. Suddenly, I remembered what he had said, and it seemed very odd. What did he mean by "fix me up"? Fix me up for dinner?! Somehow, that seemed a strange solution. This man's kindly manner didn't seem like one that was seeing me as a tasty meal.

A while later, I was bored, so I glanced around trying to find a clue to where I was and what might be awaiting me when the man came back. As I frantically swam around, I saw a fish symbol surrounded by words on the back wall. I squinted for a while and a few minutes later figured out what it said: Eastern Coast Official Aquatic Life Conservation Center. ECOALCC. My mind whirled around, trying to find a definition for "Conservation". Didn't that mean something like to save? I wasn't sure, since no one at Phil's office liked to read the dictionary before having their teeth examined.

It was too late. I heard the door crash close and boots squishing closer and closer. I panicked and began praying. Please, just please don't let me die now, I thought. Please, I have much more I want to do in this life before it's over.

"Okay, little guy," he said. "Just relax. This might hurt for just a second, and then you won't feel a thing."

I looked up to see what he was talking about. Something very long and pointy was advancing on me. He was pushing it towards me- trying to shove it into my body! I yelled and swam away. Every time he got close with the needle, I would cleverly zoom out of the way. At last, I got him so aggravated he wasn't a very nice guy anymore. As I tried to turn a corner, he jabbed out with the needle, and it thrust into my body.

A few minutes later, he was injecting something into me and I struggled to stay awake. I dropped a little and slammed against the panel. No…I told myself. Stay…awake! Don't…let him…get you! It was no use, and at last I was completely knocked out, nothing but blackness surrounding me.

---

My eyes slowly fluttered and opened. The fuzzy scenery came into focus and I realized that I wasn't in the same place as before. Where am I? I wondered. And what happened? Did I die? As I glanced around, I didn't think it looked like a heavenly pool in the sky. In front of me was another glass panel, however this panel was nine feet high. On the other side was the blue hallway of the building. This was another fish tank, but a gigantic fish tank. Bunches of fish swam around above me in content.

At last, I reached down onto the sand and pushed myself up. As soon as I glided up into the water, I realized that something was different. I hadn't touched the sand on the right side. Also, I had been able to push myself with more power than I ever could before. Slowly, I brought my right fin out in front of me. Normally, I can only see the black movable strips that remained at the top, but suddenly I realized that there were more black spaces than before, and the white strip at the top had returned. I had a whole fin again.

How had that happened? I gently reached out with my left fin and touched the suddenly restored right one. As I felt it, I realized that it wasn't a real fin- the conservationist had fitted a thin plastic strip over where my fin had been torn off. It was bendable and strong, and perfectly attached to the real fin remains. It was just as good as if my fin had really been restored. With a little more examination, I realized that he also put a special kind of filler in my scars and it looked just like they had never been there. This was today's technology, and I was learning that if used properly, technology isn't a totally bad thing for animals. With today's technology, people like this conservationist can perform medical miracles for unfortunate animals such as myself. Technology is only evil in the hands of evil.

As I floated up into the extended prison, my tired eyes fell upon the menagerie of undersea wildlife whizzing past. There were brightly colored tropical fish, dull grayish cod, a manta ray, water snakes, and even a little dolphin. (At first I wondered why the dolphin and the snakes didn't eat the other fish, and then I realized that the conservationist kept them full by feeding them fish that had already died.) I was amazed with this multiple group integration. This place was a much roomier prison with many other cellmates, but it was still a prison. The various colors and shapes danced before me, and I didn't receive any suspicious glances. In a way, this was good. Maybe I wouldn't have to deal with any lunatics while I formulated a plan for penetrating this new challenge.

As I began to swim away, someone in the crowd suddenly separated and came zooming towards me. Mere minutes later, a big, rounded face was gazing at mine from the side. "Well, hello there!" she called.

I totally ignored her for the moment, involved in my plotting. I didn't want to lose my train of thought. Besides, in the back of my mind, I now thought it a wise thing not to get involved with other fish. I had already saved an imprisoned group. One group was enough; I had to concentrate on saving myself.

"Excuse me!" the fish yelled. "I know you might not be feeling very well after your operation, but you could at least say hi."

At last, I decided to turn around and satisfy her so that she'd go away. Surprise suddenly surged up. This fish was a girl, and she was bigger than me! Well, most fish are bigger than me on terms of width, but not many normal fish are taller than me, complete with filamentous extension. This fish was a light blue and pinkish color with many other color appearing as the light hit her body. A pink strip wound itself all around her face, and her mouth puckered inward like a beak. This was a parrotfish. From the look in her eyes and the intensity of her colors, I could tell that she wasn't very old.

"Um…what do you want, Miss Parrotfish?" I asked her.

"I would like you to say hello and introduce yourself like a gentleman. Now I know most fish aren't very…"

"Excuse _me_," I told her. "I may not be very friendly, but that doesn't automatically make me rude. Just leave me alone; I'm trying to think." For a moment, I had a taste of the silence I craved, but I could feel the parrotfish's eyes goring into my filamentous extension. Finally, I sighed and turned back around. "Alright…hi. So who are you?"

She smiled. "Knew I'd get you into a conversation sooner or later. My name's Maisey. Who are you?"

"Gill," I replied. "Sorry, but I'm very disappointed right now."

"Why?" Maisey asked, gliding up a little closer. "Shouldn't you be grateful for that brand new fin you got there?"

I wondered how she knew about that, but it wasn't a major concern for me at the moment. Suddenly, I felt that I would gladly give up my plastic filler if I could be returned to the ocean. I didn't need a new fin, I didn't need a facelift, I needed a place of my own out in the ocean.

"I…I _am _grateful, but I don't want to stay here. I know you might not understand the feeling because you've never been there, but I do. I need to go back home…wherever that is."

Maisey stifled a giggle. "Chill out, of course you'll go home, Mr. Gill."

For a moment, this confused me. Was she trying to play a trick on me? I knew she had to have something up her sleeve. When a man captures a fish, it usually means for life.

"Haven't you ever heard of places like this? That man that fixed your fin is a conservationist. Men like him take fish they think are injured or need help, fix them up, and then a few days later return them to the sea where they belong. We don't sell to pet stores."

I stared at her for a moment, a bit dumbstruck. I couldn't believe that a place like this actually existed. Most humans thought of fish as simply things they could buy, own, and look at for their enjoyment. I couldn't believe there were actually people that thought fish were living things to be respected, and belonged where they were meant to be. For a few unnoticeably silent minutes, I absentmindedly stared at the gigantic side panel, mulling over the truth-value of her statement. It was by no means certain that I could trust Maisey, a strange parrotfish I had only just met, although I couldn't help hoping that she had spoken truthfully. There was only one way to settle the dispute once and for all, and that was to get it straight from the source.

The conservationist had impeccable timing and entered into the blue illuminated halls, holding the hand of a small human child. I gazed down at the youth and my throat constricted. I ricocheted backwards, going into a coughing spasm.

Maisey tried to mask her amusement and confusion with a look of concern. "Hey, um…are you okay there, Mr. Gill?"

At last I got a hold of my convulsions and took a deep breath of clean, widespread, yet stifling water. "Who's that little girl?!" I yelled at her.

Maisey jumped back in alarm; I guess she had been expecting me to be calm again after a deep breath.

"Let me guess- she's the conservationist's niece and she's come here to kill one of us!"

Maisey's already large eyes enlarged to add a quarter of their size. "Uh, no. What would make you think you that? Look, did something happen to you in the past? Is that why you're so crabby? Huh? It's okay if you don't want to talk about it…"

My small radar beams lost track of Maisey. Frustrated with static, I tuned my radio to a different station. It was difficult to hear on the other side of the panel, but when you're trying very hard to ignore someone, you can hear amazing things. He was talking to her, but they weren't talking about cruel and unusual punishment. He was _teaching_ her, and she was fascinated.

"This is where they go?" her little voice piped up.

"Yep," the conservationist replied. "Then I give 'em a week or two to recover, and we send 'em back into the ocean where they came from."

If any of the former tank members had seen me at that moment, they would have instantly recognized the wide-eyed, beak opened expression as the "Aquascum fascination". Amazingly enough, it was true- there actually were caring people on this planet.

Maisey stared in amazement as my gape transformed into a grin. I could see the conservationist and his daughter looking in my direction, and I quickly scraped up some way of showing them my gratitude. Like a dart, I shot forward, pulled my body up, and turned all the way over back straight up. I hadn't done a flip like that in so long it felt awkward, and I scolded myself for acting like a little kid.

Even though I knew the conservationist couldn't see my smile, I felt that he was returning it. "Yeah," he said. "You're really happy now, aren't you, little fellow? You look much better with a full fin and no scars all over you." He turned over to his daughter and pointed me out to her. "See that one right there? He's a new one, I just found him yesterday. He had half of his fin missing, and I fixed it for him. That's a Moorish idol. We don't get many of them around here."

The little girl watched me with much more awe than I ever got at Phil's office. "How can you tell it's a boy?"

The conservationist shrugged. "Well I don't know for sure, but he got mad at me when I called him a girl, so I just assumed…"

Little pleased giggles erupted from her throat, melodious compared to the roar of the flaming baby dragon. "Well, he's…he's beautiful," she commented. "He looks like a king."

"Well, Moorish idols are quite a majestic species," the conservationist explained.

"What's his name?" the girl continued.

The conservationist looked surprised. "Well, actually, I don't usually name my fish. You can name him if you want."

She paused and laid her little hands on the glass, concentrating. "The stripes make him look like a zebra, but zebras don't glow like that. I know! I'll call him Zebraglo."

The conservationist chuckled. "Then Zebraglo it is."

Immediately, my mind adapted to this new name. It wasn't much better than "Houdini", but I still found it amusing.

The conservationist was thinking for a while. He pointed next to me, at Maisey. "That one next to Zebraglo over there is Maisey, the parrotfish. See its mouth? It looks like a parrot's beak."

The little girl tore away from me for a second, looked at Maisey, and smiled. "Yeah, it does!"

Maisey, still rambling on, didn't even notice that they were looking at her.

A short while later, he led her out of the room. I noticed her face as she disappeared into the doorway. She was still looking at me. I noticed something very different about this girl, aside from her obvious maturity and gentleness. There was no flaming red hair. In fact, there was no hair at all. A piece of fabric was wrapped across her head. Slowly, I turned around, slapping Maisey out of her lecture. "So? Who was that little girl? Can you tell me anything about her?"

Maisey was shocked. "Wow. So suddenly you care about people? What happened to make that switch?"

I gave her one of my annoyed looks. I was a little apprehensive whether it would work on Maisey. Usually a key factor in getting whatever I want from other fish is intimidation by size, but she was bigger than me.

"Okay, alright," she at last agreed. "That little girl was the conservationist's daughter, her name's Rosie. That was only the second time she's been in here. Usually, he doesn't like to bring her out because she might collapse…"

Suddenly, for some reason I went frantic. It was either because I was afraid of losing a good person, or that my stay with Nemo had instilled me with a strange parental instinct. "Why? Is something wrong with her? If it is, why can't he just fix it, like he fixed my fin? What happened to her hair? Was she born without hair?"

Maisey suddenly began to laugh. "You don't know much about humans, do you?"

My beak instantly snapped shut. I had been thinking about maybe becoming a human expert. How could I be one when there was so much I still didn't know?

Maisey began a second lecture, but this time I was focused on listening to her. "Most humans are born without hair. It grows in later."

"Hers just never grew?"

"No, no!" Maisey cried. "Will you listen to me?! It fell out because she's got a very bad disease. It can't be cured, although they can do things to try and make it better. Not everything is as easily fixed as a broken fin."

For a moment, I drifted in one place, a bit shocked. Rosie would never fully be able to get rid of this illness she had. She was just like Nemo- no one would ever be able to fix his fin, but he could easily live a happy life with only one good fin. Rosie, however… Another wish came into my head. Immediately I began wondering whom this one would hurt, but it couldn't. I wished that I could help Rosie, make her life easier somehow. This was practically impossible, I thought. I'm only a fish stuck inside a fish tank, unable to communicate with her or survive in the outside environment; I couldn't do anything for her. Little did I know, I was already receiving my wish.

A few days later, the conservationist allowed Rosie to return to the building again. I was swimming laps around my side of the hallway when I heard the big set of double doors click and the sounds of hard little shoes tapping against the marble floor.

I just thought it was the conservationist again, coming in to check on us, but Maisey suddenly zoomed up beside me, gasping. "What's she doing in here unsupervised?!"

I glanced up and noticed that Rosie had entered the hallway alone. She walked around, searching the tanks for something. I blocked out Maisey's frantic voice in my ear, and listened to her worried tone on the other side. "Z…Zebraglo?" She was looking for me, I realized. Rosie slowly turned around and called again. "Zebraglo?"

Her face slowly turned orange and white stripes ran along the sides. She hovered a bit above, gazing into my world with a worried expression. She had become a little clownfish with a familiar little fin on one side. "Gill?" "Zebraglo?"

At last, I couldn't stand it, wanting so badly to help her, I darted through other small crowds of fish, and glided up in front of her.

Rosie's face lit up as she laid eyes on me. "Zebraglo! There you are!"

For the next five minutes I played stare-eyes with her. She stared at me the entire time with a fascinated little smile on her face. If the conservationist had walked in at that moment, he would've thought she had me in a trance, or I had her in a trance.

Slowly, her finger moved toward the tank. Oh no! my mind cried. I had been deceiving myself thinking that this child was different than the others like her. I backed away, bracing myself for the blast. It was only a lot of preparation for nothing. A faint bang echoed a bit as she laid one finger on the panel. The panic that had surged up in my body slowly melted away. The tip of Rosie's finger squished on the other side, trying to reach out to me, but a physical wall of glass and an unseen wall of difference obstacles stood in the way.

I swam a little closer and, hopefully not breaking the rules of animal communication, placed my left fin (although it didn't really matter which anymore) on my side of the panel, opposite her fingertip.

At first, Rosie's big eyes just widened in fascination, and then her face broke into the brightest smile I have ever seen on the face of a human. "Zebraglo…" she whispered. When her mouth opened again, it was for a triumphant call of "Daddy!"

As Rosie continued to call for the conservationist, I lowered my fin. I didn't know if this was breaking the rules, but the communication barrier was always thicker with adults.

At last, the conservationist came dashing into the room. He screeched to a halt in front of Rosie. "What? What is it, honey? Is something the matter?"

Rosie just beamed at him. "Zebraglo likes me, he tried to touch my finger! Watch!" She pressed her fingertip against the panel again.

I had been afraid of this. There was no way I could do something like that in front of the conservationist. He might start getting ideas that I was "special" and "intelligent". With observations like that, I could end up in a cruel scientist's laboratory.

"C'mon, Zebrglo…" Rosie said, concentrating. As last she turned, disappointed, from the tank side. "He's not doing it anymore, but he did it, I know he did it!"

I felt a small pang in my heart for disappointing her, but in some instances, disappointing a person is a better consequence.

Maisey jabbered at me for the rest of the day. "Wow, she's never done that before. She must really like you. It's amazing. Um, not that you're not likable…But, she's never liked one of us that much before…"

---

The next day, I aimlessly swam around, avoiding traffic and meditating at the same time. Waiting was the hardest part of this strange experience. The wait was killing me. I wanted to make sure that conservationist had been telling the truth, and I wanted to make sure I had nothing wrong with my hearing. Maybe I had a hearing impairment in which instead of hearing the truth, I heard what I wanted to hear.

For the past few days, the conservationist had noticed how happy Rosie was when she was around his fish, so he decided to let her come over and visit every day. Normally he'd be afraid to let her be walking around a place that was potentially wet and dangerous, but she usually felt better when she was happy.

That afternoon I eavesdropped on their conversation as they entered our chamber. "Now, Rosie," the conservationist told her. "You may stay in here with the fish, but remember, you have to get ready for your bath in a half hour."

"Sure, Daddy," Rosie answered him. She seemed to be glowing with eagerness. As soon as her father turned and closed the door behind him, she hurried over to my side of the tank hallway. "Zebraglo!" she called. "Oh, Zebraglo, come out! I've got a surprise for you!"

This had me stumped. What was the surprise? Fish food? Rosie couldn't get to the top of the tank to put anything in, so how could she give me a surprise? I swam out of the crowd and up to her. Maisey followed close behind. Maybe she wanted to show me something. And people say a fish's behavior is hard to decipher!

"There you are!" Rosie cried. "You getting to know Maisey? She's a pretty fish, too. You make a good couple."

Maisey's bluish cheeks flushed pink.

I turned around to look at her.

"Oh…" Maisey replied, snapping out of her embarrassed trance. "A long time ago they named me, even though they usually don't name their fish."

Rosie smiled at us, and then she quickly walked to the end of the tank hallway.

"Where's she going?" I asked.

"Oh no!" Maisey shrieked. Then I realized why. Rosie was beginning to climb the ladder at the end of the hallway. It led up to the top of the tank. "Someone get her down from there before she falls!"

I zoomed as fast as I could towards that end of the tank. Then I wondered how I could get her down.

"Do something!" Maisey cried.

"What am I supposed to do? Yell at her to get down?! Humans can't hear fish talk!" I instantly began tapping on the panel on the side, trying to get her attention.

"Shh, Zebraglo," Rosie said to me. "My dad will hear!"

I tried as hard as I could, making mad faces, pointing down, and shaking my head at her. She didn't seem to get the message and began laughing, thinking that I was playing with her. Frantically, I searched around, trying to find some way to alert the conservationist. Unfortunately, there was no underwater pull rope to sound the emergency alarm. I quickly swam to the top. Maybe I could try jumping up and trying to hit the alarm above. I never got a chance to try out that method.

Suddenly, Rosie, at the top of the ladder now, swooped down, and bagged me. I was surprised at how such a little girl could be so sneaky.

Maisey gasped. "Mr. Gill?!"

I was unsure about what was going to happen. Rosie had seemed like such a sweet girl, she couldn't want to swirl my bag and kill me…could she? No, she was holding my familiar crinkled sphere shackles gently while descending the ladder.

I saw Maisey glide up and press her fins against the panel in worry. I guess Rosie had never bagged any of them before.

She seemed to be taking me somewhere. I tried to wiggle the bag top out of her grasp, but she had a very strong hand. I thought that if I could get free of her, I could roll myself around and find the conservationist. I did get a nice tour of the conservatory.

Rosie at last halted as she reached a small bathroom on the side. I guessed that her father didn't only work here- he lived here. Rosie slipped into the room and set me down on a shelf. I was confused as she began to strip her clothes off and grab a towel out of a nearby closet. I did remember her father saying that she needed to take a bath. That's what this is, I realized. She wants to take her bath, but she doesn't want to have to leave me. I figured she'd just be looking at me while she cleaned.

Once she was fully disrobed, she grabbed my bag and placed it on the edge of the tub and then climbed into the tub herself. I turned around, posing for her. Great, I thought, I've become a shelf ornament. However, I was wrong, and this wasn't the reason for my transportation.

She gently opened the bag and plopped me into the tub beside her. I coughed for a moment, adjusting to the warm bathwater. She stared down at me with fascination. With one smaller finger, Rosie reached out and petted my filamentous extension. "You're so pretty, Zebraglo," she cooed, gently stroking it again.

I stared up into her eyes, unlike the cruel, glittering eyes of old memories. And then, I knew that there were good and bad people in the world. I had experienced both. Poor Rosie. All she wanted was to be part of my world, but this bath adventure was the closest she could get.

A few minutes later, the conservationists stomped into the bathroom. "Rosie! Oh my God!" he quickly scooped me out of the water and stuffed me back in the bag. "Did you take this fish out of the tank?"

Rosie frowned. "Yes…Daddy, I only wanted to see him closer. I wanted to touch him…"

I felt my throat constrict in sadness. This little girl just wanted to love me, but because of species differences, it was impossible.

"Zebraglo is not a toy. He's a living creature. If you handle him too much, he'll die. Tropical fish like this are very delicate…"

Suddenly, Rosie began crying, a heart-wrenching sight. She got up from the bathtub, wrapping a towel around herself, and rushed up beside me. "No! Zebraglo, I love you; I don't want you to die!"

"Then let's put him back in the tank where he's safe," the conservationist said. I felt as if the mental tape of my field trip to the bathroom was being rewound. I floated back through the halls in my crinkly sphere, this time with a much stronger hand gripping the top. The conservationist climbed up the ladder and deposited me into what I now considered not to be a jail cell, but a huge, community hospital ward.

Of course Maisey swam right up to me, asking for all the details, but I put off telling her for a little while.

What would I do if Rosie tried something like that again? How could I get rid of this love she had for me without breaking her heart? For the next two days, she still came over, but just gazed into the tank listlessly. I didn't really feel bad about what happened- it hadn't been my fault, but I just felt bad for _her_. There had to be disappointments in her life, and unfortunately, she had a lot of disappointments.

On the second day, I found out that she was going to have to go back to the hospital soon, and I felt even worse for her.

The day after that, I got a pleasant surprise when the conservationist briskly walked into the room, gazing at me, and smiling. "Well, Zebraglo," he said. "Today's your lucky day; you get to go back into the wild with your brand-new fin!"

Rosie snuck in behind him and heard everything he said. He noticed her little bald heard peeking around the door. "Rosie…you can come say good-bye to the fish, if you want. I've got to get the nets and the boat ready." Rosie shook her head and disappeared back into the hallway.

I felt a pang of guilt, although I didn't know what for.

Maisey's big, colorful body glided up next to mine. "So you're leaving, huh?"

"I _better _be leaving," I absentmindedly muttered to myself.

"Yeah, I know," Maisey said. Her voice was dull and expressionless. "You can't stand this place, right?"

As I stared out across the hallway, a curious thought crawled into my brain, and once again I wondered why I hadn't noticed this before. "Maisey, you're a fish and you're here in this conservatory. How come you haven't been sent back to the ocean?"

"Oh," Maisey replied in a bored fashion. "I can't leave."

My one-track mind of this time instantly jumped to a conclusion. "What?! You _can't _leave? They must be holding you hostage! Don't worry; I'll get you out of here!"

Maisey stifled a laugh. "Well, that's very kind of you, Mr. Gill, but you see…I _want _to stay here."

I froze in place and turned back around to face the corridor.

Maisey swam around and looked me in the face. That was the one thing that always fascinated me about Maisey. Maybe it was because she was a bigger fish, but she was never intimidated by my large snout, filamentous extension, or serious facial expressions. "I want to stay here, because I feel like this is a part of my life. The conservationist, Rosie, and the other people who work here…they're all like family to me. Besides, I get to meet lots of fish like you who are just passing through." She paused for a moment to sigh. "I know you can't understand how I feel, but I'm just trying to explain it to you."

I shook my head and smiled at her. "I understand. This is where you belong; this is your home. I'm still trying to find a place like that for me. I don't know where that is, but I know it's not here."

Maisey gave me a smile back. "Well, good-bye, Mr. Gill. I hope you find your home."

"Good-bye, Maisey," I replied. Now I was satisfied.

I turned back over to look out the panel and was surprised to notice little Rosie, her kerchief off, curled in a ball and sobbing. "Zebraglo," she said, looking up at me. "I love you, I want the best for you, but I don't want you to leave me…"

The agony of her tears was too much. I didn't care anymore about rules; this girl deserved a special farewell. I took a seaweed stick that had been lying in the sand in my left fin, and carefully I began to write backwards, so she could read it. She watched in fascination as I formed characters on the tank siding. "I will never forget you, Rosie. Please don't cry."

The shock dried her tears and her face broke into a smile. She stood up on the other side. "Zebraglo! You can write!"

Quickly, I scrawled, "Don't tell."

She grinned. "Don't worry, it'll be our secret."

I gave her a little wink. This was breaking all the rules of human-fish communication, but Rosie's smile was worth it. She opened her mouth again, probably to ask me a question of some sort, but at that moment the conservationist returned to the hallway.

"Okay, Rosie, are you ready?"

"Sure!" Rosie cried.

The conservationist was surprised at her enthusiasm. "You sure? You're ready?"

"Yeah," Rosie said, turning to look at him. "I bet he'll be happier out in the ocean where he's free."

"I'm glad you understand," the conservationist and I both said at the same time. This made me suddenly break into laughter and Maisey looked at me like I was nuts.

Then, the conservationist picked me up in another bag, and I happily let him. He then emptied me into a cooler, kind of like the one Tanachi had out me in years ago, except he handled it with care as we all walked out to the docked boat.

The conservationist and Rosie got into the boat, placed me on the floor, and opened the top of my container. The conservationist trusted me not to jump out. A few times during the boat ride, I popped my head out of the water to feel the wind whipping around my face. It reminded me a bit of being shot out of the volcano. I was being shot out of this obstacle, except I was moving backwards instead of forwards.

At last, the conservationist stopped the boat. "Okay, we're closer to the reef now. It's time for Zebraglo to go." He picked up my container and tossed me over the side.

I felt the triumphant slap of the water around me. At last I had my freedom, and this time I hadn't had to fight for it.

"Bye, Zebraglo!" Rosie called.

I poked my head up to give her a final farewell, waving my fin at her before dunking into heaven. As I began to swim away, I heard their voices from the surface.

"Daddy, did you see that?! Zebraglo waved to me!"

"Um…" the conservationist said, a little baffled. "Maybe he was just stretching his new fin."

I chuckled to myself. I knew that he had plainly seen me wave, but he just couldn't believe that a fish had waved to his daughter.

With the extra plastic filler, I could move a bit swifter and faster than I could before. With a restoration of both body and spirit, I zoomed off into the beautiful blue expanse, heading to my future. What I had set up for myself was impending, and I could feel it in my soul, although my mind remained clueless. The distant spot of light had grown and grew closer with each experience. However, before I could arrive at my destination, I had to make a detour first.


	10. Ghosts of the Past

Don't worry, you only have to read this three more times. Gill, Nemo, and those guys belong to Disney and Pixar. Stroke, Mr. Skimmer, Niches, Chang, Tanachi, Maisey, and Rosie belong to me.

AFPI: This chapter mentions many things that were in chapter 1, so if you don't remember it, you might want to quickly skim it so you're not totally confused. You finally get to find out what book Gill was reading way back in chapter 1. It's based on that deleted scene with him lying to Nemo about his origins. I don't know if that book is real or not, so I just made one up based on it. That's about it. Oh, the original title of this chapter was Two Words: Now Where? I changed it because I thought this was a more appropriate title. I often title my chapters before I actually write them.

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Chapter 10: Ghosts of the Past

I had found a time warp and was now hurling at light speed along the tunnel. Either that or I was dying and the good points of my life were flashing before my eyes. Whichever it was, it was giving me a very soothing feeling of déjà vu. It was the wonderful long-distance swim to nowhere. I savored the serenity of the rocking blue heaven. A piece of my mind wondered where I was and where I was going, but that was the whole fun and mystery of this calming endeavor. My damaged side, although invisible from a distance, was still damaged. I know too well what could be lurking around the next bend, but the ocean calmed all my fears. "Relax," it said to me. "You are mine. I love you. I will deliver you to the place you belong."

As I glided, comfortably and easily through this beautiful wonderland, I closed my eyes and let the current take me. I had become one with the ocean itself, and for the first time in almost three years, my spirit soared, peacefully rejoicing in the pure magnificence of nature.

When this blue heaven opened up around me again, I realized that the ocean had taken me straight in front of a little cliff. I could see nothing significant about this cliff; it housed only four clams, arranged in a circle. An uncanny curiosity pushed me forward to the cliff. The ocean had to have a reason for bringing me here; I had to search a little harder to find it.

There was nothing special about the clams. They were just a bunch of ordinary brown, ridged clams, but they had formed a perfect ring around a portion of the sand they lay on.

I swam down into the center, and noticed, to my surprise that something was written in the sand the clams were surrounding. The letters were a bit smudged, but as I squinted at them, I could make out the word.

"P, A, P…pap? No…paper! N, E, L…nell? Paper Nell?" Suddenly, I gasped. "Papernell!"

Instantly, my trained mind launched into verse. "_I'm Captain Papernell, reporting for duty/ You all come on out for the weather's a beauty/ We're going sailing, the sky is so blue/ Come enter a world that you never knew._" I had recited this many times before, countless times inside my own head, and once to Nemo (although I wasn't sure that he heard.) This was one of the many verses in my book, a children's book written in this rhyming sequence.

Suddenly, my body began shaking and laughter bubbled up out of my snout, although I had no idea why. I turned a few somersaults in celebration. At last, I had found something familiar to me. Later, my mind reprimanded me for such childish behavior, but don't all adults act like kids a few times?

When the party in my nerves slowed down to a dull humming, I realized what this message really meant. I had been here before. This was one of the words I had written in the sand that I thought for sure had been destroyed. Also, this had to be a critical point to be marked with this name, as Captain Papernell had always been my favorite character.

Glancing around, I estimated the direction I thought I had come from, turned around, and began swimming the opposite way. The problem with the ocean is that it is almost impossible to know where you came from and where you haven't gone, especially in an open area. I hadn't a clue where I had come from the first time, and I was headed in exactly the direction of where I had originally come.

Gradually, color began to burst forth from the blue heaven, like fireworks of many different hues. Smatterings of corals, sponges, and seaweed came into view. I had reached the edge of the reef. The same reef I had come from, the same reef that taught me all I know about life in the ocean, and about myself. The reef was a cruel and strict teacher, but it got its message across explicitly.

Why am I here? My mind wondered. There is nothing here for me anymore. I needed to find somewhere else, but as of now, there was nowhere for me to go.

I hit the colors of the reef and slid into a different world within the ocean world. This section was recognizable, and for a few moments, I admired the busyness and excitement of the reef world. For no particular reason, I said in my head, "Well, I wouldn't want to live here again, where a lot of horrible memories still rest, but it would be nice to live in a place like this."

For sure, I thought I was drifting through a wonderful piece of memory. Any second now I would be awakened by a sudden burst of light, or a talkative parrotfish. Various species whooshed by, going about their own business.

"Hey look, a Moorish idol," a passing gossiping fish said to her companion. "We haven't seen many of them around here since the war." The second fish nodded.

This didn't seem to make sense in my mind. Perhaps things in this area had changed considerably since I'd been here. It didn't matter- I had to look for a new home. Still, half of me was curious.

The magical color danced around me. A pair of kissing fish pulled a seaweed cover over themselves as I passed by. Random seahorses jetted up, attaching themselves to stalks of seaweed and staring at me with bulging eyes. I had been expecting this, since I now knew that Moorish idols were suddenly a rare sight.

At last, I paused as I saw it in the distance. My boggled, weary eyes had set upon so many different images in my lifetime, yet this one still stuck there, and I recognized it instantly. The spiky shell was a bit cracked, and most of its spikes had fallen off, but there it was, standing like a monument to my family.

I swam towards the opening, but hesitated. I wondered if my brothers and sisters still lived here, and if that skate teacher was still alive. If I entered and they were still there, would they recognize me? Would they still treat me with the same hostility they had shown me as a child? Would they even remember me? At last, I decided to go into the cavern anyway. It was the only way to find out. Even if they didn't know me or still hated me, it would make no difference. Although this was the place where I had been born, this was not my home. I had established that a very long time ago.

The whole sheltered reef area seemed quiet and deserted. Even though the water was warm, it felt cold. I gazed down at the empty path of sponges where my mother and father had once sat. Suddenly, I felt as if I were hovering over a scene from my own life. My mother sat on the sponge to the right of the one closest to the cliff. There I was, six years old, lying comfortably on a sponge only a few inches away. I was amazed at the details I was suddenly able to recall.

At last it was time to face the most dreaded spot of all- the open area where I had spent the first six years of my life. As I looked around, I could see no trace of my 99 siblings or the skate teacher. I did see the small crevice where I had been attacked, and the other set of sponges that were "off-limits" for me.

And then, turning slightly to my right, I saw it. For the first time in my life, I was sincerely spooked. It seemed to become even colder around me, although the temperature really hadn't changed at all.

In a corner of the clearing sat a towering pile of bones- Moorish idol bones. I wasn't going to float there and count all the skeletons, but I knew from the alarmingly large pile that all of them had died. My curious mind wondered what in the world could have happened that would kill them all.

A pair of young voices chimed up from outside, giving me the answer to that question. "Well, here we are," the first voice said.

"Are-Are you sure this is the place?" the second, timid voice replied.

"Yes, I'm positive," the first replied. "Once a family of Moorish idols lived here. There were a hundred of 'em. Yes, they were all beautiful fish on the outside, but inside they were all evil and rotten. Eventually, they all began battling each other. It escalated into full-fledged war and they all destroyed themselves. Some say that the battle is still far from over. Their ghosts still float around that cavern, trying to finish what they started in life."

The second young voice trembled a little bit more. "Y-Y-You're just making that up!"

"No, I'm not," the first young fish said. "Just ask that brown skate in the clearing. He knows all about it."

So, the skate teacher was still alive after all. I had no way of knowing if what they were saying was true, but it didn't seem unlikely at all.

"I…I'm not going in there!" the second young fish cried.

"We made a deal," the first one argued. "Get in there!"

Slowly, I began to turn from the bone pile. Now it was for certain that fate had a hand in what happened to me in those years. It knew that I had a greater destiny and had to leave the cavern. There was a meaning for everything. Even though it seemed a but disconnected and far-fetched, I felt that my mother and father had died for me, that I would leave the cavern and not get caught up in this future war.

Just as I began to head for the opening, a fearful little fish with stripes running along his back bumped into me. He looked up, his eyes as round and bulging as the seahorses'. I was just about to tell him not to be afraid, that I wasn't a ghost, but I never got the chance.

"_Aaaaaauuugh!_" he screamed. He whipped around and zoomed away so fast, he left a bubble trail. "I saw one! I saw one!" he yelled to his friend.

"You _did_?!" the friend cried.

It was time to put an end to this. I tried to put on a less intimidating face, and slowly glided out of the cavern. "Calm down, kids," I began to say. "I'm not a…"

"_Aaaaaaauuugh!_" the two little fish screamed together. They both swam for their lives.

I couldn't help but chuckle a bit as I watched their little bodies disappearing into the reef. I imagined them, grown up with children and telling their kids about the time they encountered a Moorish idol ghost.

My searching eyes then fell upon a group of angelfish not too far away. They were engrossed in a conversation and hadn't noticed the children's adventure. I glided up to them, curiosity overcoming any reservations I had about approaching them.

"Excuse me," I gently interrupted them. "Do any of you know of a skate that used to live with a family of Moorish idols that lived there?" I pointed to my spiky shell crevice. I had absolutely no idea why I was doing this. The skate teacher hadn't been a very good friend of mine, but the back of my mind was nagging me to meet him again, if I could. After all, he was the only one alive that was connected with my past.

The four puzzled angelfish gave me odd looks.

I continued glaring at them, unaffected by their confused glances.

Finally, one angelfish in the back spoke up. "You mean Mr. Skimmer? He lives just beyond that rock over there, in a clearing."

I nodded to them and said, "Thanks."

As I swam off towards the rock, my mind reeled. Mr. Skimmer? It sounded familiar. That had to be the skate teacher's name, although I didn't remember it at the time. At last, I reached the clearing and I instantly recognized the long, brownish-colored skate. He was half-buried in the sand and looking rather glum.

I swam out into the middle of the clearing. All the fish that had been playing, talking, or swimming in the vicinity turned and stared at me, since they'd probably not seen a Moorish idol in many years.

I glided right up in front of him, but he did not see me, for his eyes were covered with sand. "Excuse me…you're Mr. Skimmer?"

"Whaddaya want?" he grumbled, not even bothering to look up.

"I want a word with you," I spoke up, trying to ignore his grouchiness. "I believe we've met before."

"Oh, yeah?" Mr. Skimmer challenged. "I highly doubt that." At last, he shook the sand from his head. He began to gape the instant he laid eyes on me. I noticed his eyes darting over, checking my yellow sides. "I…You…You're a…Wait! I…I remember! I taught you, didn't I? A-At the spiny shell cavern, about 28 years ago…Geez, it's been a long time. Yeah, you ran away when the parents died and I spent three days searching for you. You were always such a well-behaved young fish, and very bright. You were actually my favorite, but I wouldn't let the others know that." Mr. Skimmer was getting visibly more excited as he remembered more things. "I know, your name is…wait, don't tell me..." He concentrated hard. After a few minutes, I coughed a bit to give him a hint. It worked instantly. "Gill!" Mr. Skimmer cried. "Gill, that's you, isn't it?"

I smiled and nodded at him.

Suddenly, his curved "wings" shot forward and wrapped me in a hug. "My gosh…you're the only one left! I was angry with you for running away when you did, but now I'm glad you ran away."

I realized that my brothers and sisters reminded me of Chuckles- brainless. They hadn't had a purpose or a reason for living. Thus…

"Imagine that," Mr. Skimmer continued. "Who knew that out of the hundred, you'd be the only one to survive? You still have problems with that asthma?"

"Not really anymore," I told him, trying to free myself from his grip. "It's gotten better."

"Well, that's good." Mr. Skimmer noticed me struggling and at last released me. "You still reading too? I remember you really liked to read."

"Yes," I told him. It wasn't a lie, I _had _been reading at Phil's office. I just hadn't gotten to pick which books I'd read.

"In fact," he continued. "I still have that book you used to read. Of course, half of it's destroyed, but…"

My soul jumped. Maybe there was a reason for this reunion. "You do?! Could I see it for a moment?"

"Sure, wait a second…" Mr. Skimmer searched around and at last pulled that magical book from the ordinary sandy floor. He placed it in front of me.

_The Seaside Tales_. The letters had begun to fade, but there they were, twinkling at me like stars. I could scarcely believe the book was even real, after not seeing it for so long, except in my dreams. I gently moved the pages as if the book were a family heirloom- an heirloom only Mr. Skimmer and I knew of. I first eyed the damage that had been done. Both covers had been seriously dented, and many pages were missing, especially between page 1 and page 12. A lot of other pages were ripped and pieces of pictures were missing. In one, the bait was missing. In another, Papernell was hurling a tree overboard. Linus had been decapitated on more than one occasion.

And…the last two pages remained untouched. I hadn't given them enough time to rip out the ripped pages, or begin to rip the last two. I happily perused them. Now I knew how the book ended, but I was actually pretty disappointed. It had been more fun imagining the ending than actually reading the ending.

Mr. Skimmer smiled. "You can take it if you want, I don't need it anymore."

I smiled back at him. "Thanks, but no thanks." With that, I ripped apart the last couple of pages.

Mr. Skimmer's eyes bulged, and he began to gape for the third time. "Ah…uh…but…" His wide skate mouth was speechless, appalled at what his former student had just done. What had happened in these past years? Perhaps in his years of being a recluse, this favorite little fish had become a crazy adult fish. Oh great, another erratic Moorish idol.

No, I wasn't reading his thoughts, but it was almost like I could, just from reading his expression. "I'm not nuts," I tried to assure him, although he didn't look too convinced. "I don't need the book; I've already got it. In here." I pointed to my head.

Mr. Skimmer shrugged. "Oh, well…it was…good…seeing you." He began to turn around, but he turned back around. "Oh, what am I saying? Are…are you looking for a place to stay? I could find you a place in this reef section. It's pretty nice around here, actually. It's been quiet ever since…well, ever since I left the cavern."

"No, thank you," I told him. "I have to get going."

Mr. Skimmer actually looked a little disappointed. "But…I haven't seen you for 28 years and you're leaving after only a few minutes?!"

I really didn't want to disappoint Mr. Skimmer; I had never wanted to disappoint him. However, I knew there was no way I could stay here. There were a lot of bad memories here. I needed somewhere new, where the memories were waiting to be made, where I could start over again. If I stayed here, I would not be who I wanted to be; I would just be the remains of the lost Moorish idol family. "Don't worry," I called to Mr. Skimmer as I began to swim away. "I promise I'll come and visit you soon!"

He waved one of his wings. It was then that I noticed that the fish in the reef patch were staring at Mr. Skimmer more then they were staring at me. Ever since the war, he'd become a bit of a grouch, and they hadn't seen him so friendly.

Yes, I felt bad about leaving so suddenly, but even though I make some stupid mistakes sometimes, I never break my promises. As I glided away, something felt very familiar, except the feeling inside wasn't scared and flighty. It was…triumphant. I had conquered my own haunting past.

This time, I was headed in another direction- both literally and figuratively. Instead of streaming off towards my doom, I was at last beginning to heal. I was slowly demolishing the walls I had built around myself, cutting me off from the rest of the world. As I once again left my origins behind, I had no idea what was waiting for me around the next bend. I would let the ocean take me- and it would deliver me to my destiny.


	11. Reward For More Than Compensation

The end is nigh! Gill, Nemo, Marlin, Dory and those guys belong to Disney and Pixar. Stroke, Mr. Skimmer, Niches, Chang, Tanachi, Maisey, and Rosie are mine.

AFPI: Actually, I don't really think there are mistakes in this chapter, except for the ones you already know about. Here comes my second-favorite fish- Dory! Yeah, this chapter's one of the smallest in the fic, but the next one will make up for it. Yup, the end is nigh.

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Chapter 11: Reward For More Than Compensation

My streamlined body slipped easily through the shining blue ocean water. I twirled about, letting the pulsating waves carry me for a moment. It is amazing how we all live on one planet, yet there are so many totally separate worlds inside of this one planet. For instance, the humans live in a different world from us fish. Fish, too, can live in different worlds. The horseshoe crabs live in a different world than Niches and her friends, and my old neighbors lived in a different world than other parts of the reef. I was entering the territory of one of these new worlds, without knowing it. In fact, I had already crossed the border at this point in time. The world of Phil's aquarium was still alive in me. It had been terrible to be stuck inside a water-filled prism for two years, but I was actually quite glad I had that experience. Now I knew just how lucky I really was.

There was something else still alive in me, and I could feel it tugging. A magnetic force field was pulling me toward the other one. That was the only explanation I could come up with for the amazing coincidence that was now closing in on me.

I swam contentedly around this unknown zone, and turned back for a moment. Now the time warp I felt for a long time that I had been stuck in was bringing me back to a more recent past. Little did I know, I had done more than I thought I had done.

Oh, well, I had thought after departing from my own reef cavern for the second time in my life. I may never find a home of my own, and I may remain a nomad, wandering the ocean still in search of a proper residence. Perhaps I could travel around the world, and really become a good travel agent. With my knowledge of the human race, I figured I could also help by teaching fish how to avoid human capture while on vacation.

The ocean had other plans for me. It promised that it would take me to a place where I belong. Like me, it made a few stupid mistakes every now and then, but it never broke its promises.

As I silently swam a little further along my chosen directions, I thought I heard voices from my memories. Echoes of times past were floating through the tunnel. I couldn't have heard what I thought I had just heard…could I? Could I actually trust my optimistic assumptions?

And then- it came again. "Gill!" a little voice cried in the distance. I stopped in the middle of the water. Throughout the entire insightful experience, I had been chasing salvation. Although I wasn't aware just yet, for the first time, salvation was coming to me. The darkness of my past was trembling in fear, about to be penetrated by something much more powerful than its dreadful shadows. That one spot of light was in grasping distance. My future was waiting.

"Gill!" That little voice sounded terribly familiar…but…it just couldn't be…

"Shark…Bait?" I said, slowly.

"Gill!" the voice yelled again, this time louder.

At last, I turned around. As soon as I saw that little orange body, I nearly burst out in tears of happiness. I was so surprised to see him here- alive and well, and so soon after. It had only been about four or five months since he had escaped. "Shark Bait!" the familiar nickname erupted from my mouth all by itself.

The little orange-and-white body shot up, flinging his full fin over my neck area. "You got out!" he cried. "I thought…I thought I'd never see you again."

"Me too," I admitted. "Did you find…?" That question didn't require a specification or a reply. Just from looking into the little clownfish's sparkling reddish eyes, I could tell that he'd been able to find his father again. I was soon to know the story of this wonderful reunion, and how it involved me.

"Oh," Nemo suddenly realized. "I'm sorry, I forgot you don't hug." With that, he tapped the front of his face against my neck.

Smiling, I gave him a real nudge back. I thought it was kind of cute that he actually remembered the special "Moorish idol nudge" I had taught him back in the tank. "So," I spoke up. "How've you been, kid? Where's your dad?"

"Oh, he's back there with Dory," Nemo said.

Dory? I didn't remember anyone named Dory. I knew that Nemo's father's name was Marlin, only because Nigel had mentioned it while telling us about the adventure. During the whole escape sequence, I hadn't gotten to really look at what was in Nigel's beak, but now I thought I remembered someone else with Nemo's father. Does he have a stepmother? I wondered. He had never mentioned his stepmother before. Then my mind snapped at me not to jump to conclusions- I had been wrong about that conservationist holding Maisey hostage, hadn't I?

"Anyway, I've been doing great!" Nemo continued, happily. "Yesterday, I went exploring with my friends, and we…"

I was really trying to listen to his story, but something in the distance kept grabbing my attention and I found it hard to concentrate on anything else. Two figures were moving closer and closer to us, with each word, they seemed to swim a little closer. An orange and a blue blob emerged from the blue curtain, and a mere moment later two new fish came paddling into my life.

First came Marlin, the elusive father of Nemo. I was actually quite surprised to discover nothing out of the ordinary about him. After hearing about all the things he had endured, it was hard to picture him as the common, everyday fish before my eyes. He gave me looks of confusion, anger, and fear all at the same time.

The blue fish seemed slightly familiar, but only as a blue blob in the distance. The black design on her back and the yellow tips on her fins identified her as a regal blue tang. She grinned, absentmindedly at me.

Marlin, however, looked a bit frightened. "Nemo!" he cried. "How many times have I told you not to talk to strange fish?!" He swam forward a bit, probably to grab Nemo away from me.

Now, little Nemo looked confused. "But, Dad, he's not a strange fish! That's my friend Gill! You know, from the tank?!"

Marlin blinked his reddish eyes, identical to Nemo's, at me. Apparently, he couldn't remember me as much as I could remember him. "Yeah…maybe. I remember seeing something that looked like you…"

"He helped me escape!" Nemo cried. "After you left. I never told you about that, did I?"

I glided forward a bit to meet him. "You must be Marlin. It's a pleasure to meet you; I've heard a lot about you."

He looked a little embarrassed and still scared stiff. Even though I tried to put on a smile and look friendly, he was still a clownfish, about half my size. "R-really?" he stuttered. "It's really nothing…" It was still amazing to me that this fish had faced sharks, jellyfish and monsters from the deep, yet I was scaring him. The quivering in his body was easily recognizable. This was the fish that had done more in a week than I had my entire life.

Slowly, he built up enough courage and stuck his right fin out, offering it in a fin-shake. I stuck out my right fin, the one that had been newly restored, and flexed it a bit, just to make sure the plastic was still in place. Then I placed it in his, and we shook. Now Marlin had truly entered my life.

"Fin-shakes!" the regal blue tang cried. "Fin-shakes all around!" She zoomed up, shook Nemo's fin, then Marlin's. At last, she barreled up to me, seized my fin and shook it. This was yet another fish that, like Maisey, was unaffected by my looming presence. "Hi, I'm Dory!" she cried. "What's your name?"

"Gill," I replied, a little flabbergasted. I checked my fin just to make sure she hadn't ripped the plastic off. "Um…nice to meet you."

Dory smiled. "Well, that's an easy name to remember. I'll remember it!"

At last, Nemo realized something different. He paddled over to my right side. "Hey, what happened to your fin? It's all fixed." It looked like we had a lot of story exchanging to do.

"Well, after the tank gang and I finally got out of the tank in the dentist's office, I got captured again, by a man called a marine conservationist. He fixed my fin, and my scars are gone too. It's not like it actually makes a difference, but…"

"Yes it does," little Nemo objected. "You look nicer." He swam a little closer to examine the plastic filler. "Do you think you could take me to that whatever-you-call-it guy. He could fix _my_ fin too!"

I frowned. "Well, I'm not sure about that. See, I don't really know where it is anymore…" I knew the conservationist probably would not be able to fix Nemo's fin, because he had been born with it.

Marlin swam forward and took Nemo's little fin. "Now, Nemo, why would you want to fix your fin? Then it wouldn't be lucky anymore!"

"Da-ad," Nemo groaned.

I decided to play along a little. "I only got mine fixed because it was ripped. I was born with a normal fin. That fin makes you special because you were born with it."

Marlin looked at me strangely, and I backed away a bit. Maybe I was trying a little too hard to be fatherly and taking over his job. "So…um, Gill? What are you doing around here anyway?"

"Well, I'm looking for a place to stay, actually…"

"Stay with us!" Nemo cried.

The suggestion came so suddenly, that I immediately refused. "Well, I wasn't really expecting to…I mean, you don't have to…"

Dory smiled and disagreed, as always. "No, we don't mind! The more the merrier! C'mon with us, mister…um…what was it?" She screwed up her face, thinking. "Phil?"

"Gill," I reminded her.

"Oh, right. Sorry!"

By now I was receiving nervous glances from Marlin. The poor guy. He had to deal with this stranger suddenly invading his family, and there was nothing he could do about it because he looked like an army general. My beak opened to end this uneasiness once and for all, but Dory and Nemo were practically pushing me toward their end of the reef. Maybe I'll just stay for a day, I thought. That should be enough to satisfy them and not stir up trouble in the terms of parental dominance.

Behind me I could hear Nemo telling his father about how I had been shot out of the volcano and saved him from the giant terrorizing child.

"Gee," Marlin's voice floated from the back. "I never knew that! Erm…thank you, sir."

I looked back at him, trying to settle the uneasiness that lingered in the atmosphere once again. "Well you're certainly welcome. I wasn't going to just sit there and let him die. What kind of fish would I be then?"

"That's not all!" Nemo cried. "He saved the lives of those fishes in the net!"

When the little clownfish made this addition, my mind reeled. Fish in a net? The conclusion I first came to was that Nemo was making up stories, trying to give me tools to impress them with. He must have been trying to get me to stay. I knew he wanted me to stay, and that was one of the key factors in deciding if I left or not. I didn't want to disappoint the little clownfish, but I really didn't think I belonged with these fish.

"Remember when I told all the fish to swim down?" Nemo said, excitedly recalling his heroic deeds. "Gill taught me to do that when caught in a net. If he hadn't taught me, I wouldn't have known."

"Really?" Marlin replied. I could tell he didn't completely believe it, but he was letting it pass.

"And Dory was in that net, too. Guess he saved her too, huh?"

I felt it was time to step in and stop this inaccurate half-worshiping. "Well, I didn't _really _save them, I just helped. If you hadn't remembered…"

My sentence was chopped off as Dory abruptly threw herself in front of me. Her big, round eyes obscured my vision. "Really?! You saved me?!" Before I could stop her, she had flung her fins around my neck again. "_Thank you, Dil!!!!_"

I pushed her back the same time Marlin pulled her back by the tail. "Okay, Dory, that's enough," Marlin told her.

Our strange little group paddled along a sand bar. Somehow I felt that I was being held captive- or I was holding them captive. I could barely stand the awkwardness around me. Why was I here with a family I barely even knew, trying to be a part of them? Still, I had nothing else to do, and the change of scenery would be good for me. Our four heads peeked out over the cliff, and I first laid eyes on the next part of my life.

The sandy stretch of ocean bottom was now in front of us. This was where a very long journey would at last conclude. I had not known this, or I would have been much more eager to pursue Nemo's hair-brained suggestion. This was just an ordinary reef clearing in the middle of an ordinary reef, but like Marlin, its mediocre appearance hid something much greater. At last, the future had arrived.

"Well," Marlin said, taking a deep breath, "Welcome to Eco Valley."


	12. A New Beginning

This is it! The last time you'll ever see this darned disclaimer! Yea! Gill, Nemo, Marlin, Dory, exc. belong to Disney and Pixar. Stroke, Mr. Skimmer, Niches, Chang, Tanachi, Maisey, Rosie, Mr. Mask, and Mr. E. Spear are mine.

AFPI: none! At least I don't think so. I don't think there's really anything wrong with this chapter. I do know that Freckles' real name is Kathy. But…also…this chapter is extremely long! Unnaturally long! Joyfully long! Painfully long! I saved the longest for last!

---

Chapter 12: A New Beginning

Eco Valley was, or course, the name for their portion of the reef. Although the reef itself has a name- Great Barrier, it is comprised of many other small communities. It may seem inaccurate to call it a valley, but this portion happened to be a bit lower than other portions, except for the cliff where this family resided. On this first day at Eco Valley, Nemo, Dory, and Marlin ordinarily showed me around.

"And this is our humble home," Marlin said as we neared upon an anemone, its pink tendrils gently waving back and forth. "Well, Nemo and I. Dory sleeps outside since she obviously can't go in there…"

"It's not fair!" Dory teased. "You're so mean; making me sleep outside!"

"It's okay, Aunt Dory," Nemo said, smiling. "We still love you."

"And we show it by _making _you sleep outside," Marlin added. "You'd probably be dead by now if we didn't…"

Dory swam over and rubbed his orange head. "Ah, calm down, worry puss."

Again, I felt as if I were looking through a window, but this time not a window into the past, but a window into these fish's lives. I was not playing a part in this movie- I was only filming it. Was this what it was like to really have a home and a family? These three fish made a picturesque example of a loving family. This was where they belonged. Home. The word really meant nothing to me, since I'd never really had one. Did I have a home? Did I really belong anywhere? Where did I fit into all this? Was there really a place out there for me, or had I been searching all my life for nothing? It didn't exist; I had been fooling myself from the moment I had left our reef cavern. I had missed being caught in the Moorish idol civil war, I had avoided being killed by the sharks, I had escaped being shocked by the eels, and I had gotten out of the tank…but why? If I could never achieve this peaceful unity, what had been the point?

The little voice swelled up again. "Gill! Wake up, Gill!" Nemo's little face materialized just in front of my snout.

"You were scaring us," Dory added. "We thought you were paralyzed."

"No, no," I brushed it off. "Just thinking."

That night, I couldn't sleep and wandered around the area around the anemone. I wondered if I should leave now, but Nemo would be so disappointed.

Dawn was breaking above us. A few minutes later, I began to make my way back towards the anemone to see if the clownfish were awake yet.

A blue freckled face suddenly emerged from the coral in front of me. "Aaaugh!" Dory screamed. "Don't scare me like that!"

"Are they up yet?" I blatantly asked. This needed to be settled, and I would have to tell them now that I was leaving. If there was a place for me somewhere, I definitely did not think it was here.

"I…don't know," Dory answered, after she had finally figured out who "they" were. "I'll go find out!" She jetted up just outside the anemone, took a deep breath and yelled. "Rico! Rico's dad! Rise and shine!" Sure, that was really a way to wipe away the uneasy atmosphere.

I zipped up and covered her mouth. "I didn't mean for you to wake them up!"

"Forry," Dory mumbled under the plastic.

"Don't worry about it, we're up already," Marlin said, emerging from the pink forest with his son at his side.

"Guess what?! Guess what?!" Nemo cried. "We're going to the drop-off today! You're coming, right?"

I opened my mouth to try to explain that I was leaving, but I never got the chance.

"Of course we are!" Dory cried. Before I knew it, she was pushing me out with them and I had no choice but to follow.

As we made our way through the colorful masses of coral, Nemo and his father seemed to be discussing something. At last, Nemo turned back to look at me. "Since Dory's my aunt now, you should be my uncle!"

I was slightly taken aback by this. I didn't expect him to be clinging to me that much. This only made breaking the news of my departure even harder. I might as well tell him now before this went any further. "Well, you see…"

"Uncle Roadkill!" Dory interrupted me.

Marlin burst out laughing.

I instinctively tried to stop my laughter and choked a bit.

Nemo just looked perplexed since he didn't know what "roadkill" meant.

"What?" Dory asked, confused as always. "That's his name, isn't it?"

Marlin and I were stifling chuckles and we didn't bother to correct her. Now this cheery regal blue tang forever knows me as Uncle Roadkill.

At last, we reached the cliff of the drop-off, where the world of the reef suddenly halted and plunged into the world of the open sea. "_Come enter a world that you never knew_." Why had I suddenly remembered that line from _The Seaside Tales_? It didn't apply in this situation. I knew the world of the ocean very well by now. However, there was another, totally different world inside the ocean that I had never really known. That was the world of the reef. Somehow, Papernell had a message for more than just the children. We traveled as a small unit out into the blue, not too far from the edge.

"So, what are we going to do?" Nemo asked.

"Don't know," Marlin said. "You wanted to come out here."

"I thought there might be another butt and we could watch it," Nemo said.

"Boat," Marlin corrected him.

Someone was approaching us, and I glanced back to get a look at him. It was a puffer fish with dark brown stripes on his body. One strip went across his eyes.

"Well hello, Mr. Mask," Marlin called to him. "What brings you to the drop-off?"

"Oh, just my morning swim," the puffer replied. "Got to keep in shape y'know." Slowly, he turned to his right, and set eyes on me for the first time. "Aaugh!" he cried, and suddenly inflated like a balloon.

"Oh no," Marlin said. "Don't worry, Mr. Mask, we'll deflate you."

That is my claim to fame. I can make puffer fish puff and octopi ink with just one glare. Yes, we all have unusual talents, although I don't mean to use mine. It would come in handy later, though.

Suddenly, I noticed Nemo's little reddish eyes light up. "Wait, Dad, I want to show you something."

"Not right now, Nemo," Marlin said. "You can show me right after I deflate Mr. Mask."

"No, wait!" Nemo cried. "Look, this is something else that Gill taught me…"

With a bit of a panic, I realized what he was about to do. "No!" I yelled over to him. "Don't, he's a stranger, he might not take it well…"

It was too late. Nemo zoomed forward and bumped Mr. Mask with the front of his face. Great, I thought. Now what would Marlin think of me teaching bad lessons to his son? Had I set a bad example and Nemo thought our little game in the tank translated as "If you see an inflated puffer fish, hit it?"

"Hey, what the…" Mr. Mask floated over towards Dory, a bit dazed.

"Dory!" Nemo called. "We're playing a game!"

Dory's eyes lit up as well. "A game? A game?! Ooh, can I play?"

"Sure!" Nemo replied. "Hit Mr. Mask back over to me!"

Dory whacked Mr. Mask with her fins and he glided over to Nemo. In the background, I could see Marlin watching in horror. What had I done…As I looked at Mr. Mask, careening back and forth between the little clownfish and the regal blue tang, he didn't seem to be in pain. He looked a little surprised, but he actually looked like he was enjoying it. Dory suddenly hit Mr. Mask the wrong way and he went flying towards Marlin.

"Get him, Dad!" Nemo cried.

Marlin suddenly looked confused, and I could understand why. Would it make him a bad parent if he joined in because he was encouraging bad conclusions such as "if you see an inflated puffer fish, hit it?" Would it make him a bad parent for stopping everyone's fun, even though it was pretty harmless? Marlin smiled, to my surprise, and tapped Mr. Mask up into the water. Then, he started succumbing to gravity and arced back down to the other side.

"Uncle Roadkill!" Dory cried. "Hit him over to me!"

Indeed, the reluctant pufferball was headed in my direction, and there was no going back now. I tapped Mr. Mask over to Dory, hoping he would forgive me, since I had unintentionally started this whole game.

As the game progressed, we all began talking and laughing, and soon even Marlin and I were talking to each other like old buddies. There was no lashing at ourselves for immature behavior, since we were all reveling in youthful pleasure. It amazed me later that we were suddenly all blending in a strange kind of harmony. If you ever have to meet someone new, make sure to have a nervous puffer fish on hand, because nothing breaks the ice like a good game of pufferball.

At last, Mr. Mask finally managed to deflate himself, and although Nemo groaned, he looked pretty happy. He laughed and rubbed his head. "Whew! The world is spinning…"

"Uh, we're really sorry about that," Marlin said, catching his breath and smiling broadly.

"No, it's fine," Mr. Mask said. "In fact, it was quite invigorating. I'm ready for my swim now!" Mr. Mask swam away, wavering dizzily.

Now that he was gone, I forced my cheek muscles to relax and got a hold of myself again. I cleared my throat and coughed a little, since I still had a slight bit of asthma.

"That was fun!" Dory cried between giggles. She rolled about, giddy with fun and excitement. "Can we do that again? Huh? Can we, Uncle Roadkill?"

Now the fun was over- it was time to get serious again. "No. We can't play pufferball again. You shouldn't use fish as toys just for your amusement."

Hearing this, I noticed Marlin also snap back into serious father mode. "Yes, he's right. Did you hear that, Nemo? No more using puffer fish, or any other fish for that matter, as balls. Mr. Mask didn't mind being part of our game, but other fish might get very angry if you hit them around."

"I know," Nemo said, sadly. "But…can I still play pufferball, just as long as it's with Mr. Mask?"

Marlin and I looked at each other. "Well," Marlin said. "That's up to Mr. Mask."

---

The rest of the day seemed to flow a lot more smoothly and easily. The uneasiness in the air had almost completely dissolved. It seemed like someone had seen me peering in the window, and at last I had been let in the room. Speech was flowing like a gentle river, and I was so comfortable with them, I didn't even realize it. I returned to the coral outside when night fell, and for once in my life, did not spend all night thinking. It felt strange and unnatural, but this was the way it was supposed to be.

The next morning, I awoke to a familiar voice yelling, "Rise and shine, Uncle Roadkill!"

"Hi, Dory," I replied, without looking up.

Dory gasped. "How'd you know it was me? Are you psychic?"

Something came over me, and I decided to have a little fun with her. I got up and stared into her eyes, intensely. "Yes, Dory, I have psychic powers…I can see into your mind…"

"Oooooooh…" she muttered, her whole body trembling. "Oooh, don't do that…it's creepy…"

Fortunately, my creepiness was cut off as I tried to suppress a big yawn. For a moment, I was afraid she might take me seriously. What was wrong with me? My mind wondered. I hadn't interacted in teasing sarcasm in many years. Maybe the sleep was corrupting me. I find it strange that when you don't sleep for a night, you feel awoke, but when you finally get some sleep, you are sleepier than before. At least that was how I felt, and nothing felt normal anymore, it felt…better than normal.

That morning, Marlin and Dory went to drop Nemo off at school, and I decided to come with them. Of course, Nemo was overjoyed and talked excitedly about school and his friends the whole way there. Seeing him so full of energy seemed to give me more energy. We arrived at the clearing and saw Nemo off, waving to him as he rode away on the back of a spotted ray. Some of the parents in the clearing gave me strange glances, but my glaring kept them from asking any questions.

"So, who might you be?" a seahorse finally approached me. "We don't see many Moorish idols around here."

"Oh, my name is Gill," I informed them. "I'll only be staying here for a little while. I was just passing through. Who are you?"

"I'm Bob," the seahorse answered.

"Well, pleased to make you acquaintance, Bob."

"So…" Bob began. "What're you here for? Do you have some kids back where you come from?"

"Oh, no," I replied. Kids? I just couldn't imagine myself with kids, or even a wife. I pictured a strange fish floating next to me, calling me honey, and little Moorish idols everywhere. No, it definitely couldn't happen. For one, if I were ever going to have kids, I'd only want one or two. For another, I don't particularly care for my own kind. The only kind, caring Moorish idol I had ever known was my mother, and I had barely ever seen my father. Returning to my conversation with Bob, I nodded towards Marlin and Dory. "I'm a friend of the family."

"Boy," a long-nosed butterfly fish spoke up from the back. "That family sure is small, but it has a lot of friends!"

"What are you talking about?" Dory's voice startled me, since I didn't know she'd been listening in on what we were saying. "This family isn't all that small. It's got four members."

"Four?" an octopus said, next to the butterfly fish. "There's only two of them- Marlin and Nemo."

Dory shook her head. "Nope, our family had four members: me, Frito, um…that other guy, and Uncle Roadkill here."

I froze again, in front of these new acquaintances. I couldn't believe she really thought I was part of the family, and I realized that maybe Nemo thought that way too. A distant thought way in the back of my mind told me that just maybe I _was _becoming part of the family. Perhaps that was why I was acting so strange, since I'd never really been part of a family before. Nevertheless, I sort of laughed it off with the other guys and we returned to out anemone area.

I began swimming back to my little coral shelter, out of habit. Hey, maybe I could get in a few more hours' sleep before Dory or Marlin proposed another trip. I floated back down among the various coral species. Maybe now I could finally concentrate and figure out exactly what was going on here. It had all happened so fast. Was I really part of this family, or was this yet another setback on my journey to arrive at some bigger destination?

Just as I had closed my eyes and began to slip into deep-thinking mode, I suddenly felt something on my face. A thin, slippery substance was now making its way across my nose. Perhaps a piece of seaweed had been torn from the sea bottom and had fallen onto me. Aggravated, I opened one eye to see what was once again disturbing my quiet thinking time. The one good point about the fish tank had been the plastic skull. It was separated from the rest of the environment and looked so crazy and distorted that no one liked to come near it. I couldn't think of anywhere like that in this reef.

The blue freckled face of Dory stared back at me. It had been her fin that I'd felt across my nose.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her, still a bit agitated.

"Well…" Dory lifted her fin off my face for a moment. "I don't think you heard, but as the school pickup clearing, some fish said you had a face as hard as stone." Her long yellow fin shot forward and poked somewhere near my cheek. "But it's not. It's soft."

I almost laughed, but held it in. Dory was pure and innocent- more like a fish about half her age. "No, no," I tried to explain to her. "They mean hard as in unchanging, serious…" she still looked completely baffled. "…uh, meaning I don't smile a lot."

"Well, you should!" Dory cried. "C'mon, lighten up, Roadkill!" She grabbed my face and pulled my cheeks up, forcing it into a smile. Suddenly I knew what it was like to have a grandmother. Thankfully, she let go soon after. "When you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you…hey, wait…I feel a song coming on…" Dory immediately launched into the first verse of "When You're Smiling." I groaned, softly, so she wouldn't hear. Yes, she was only trying to be friendly and helpful, but this was downright embarrassing. If any of the former tank members had been there to see their leader being serenaded by an eccentric blue tang…

A little orange body appeared in the distance and I knew that salvation was in sight. "Don't worry!" Marlin cried. "I'm coming to rescue you!"

"Really?! You're coming to save us?!" Dory cried. With her upbeat attitude, she didn't even realize that she was being insulted.

"Um…Gill?" Marlin addressed me. Even though we had broken some of the ice between us and were a little more used to each other's company, he still seemed nervous. Whenever he said my name, his voice trembled, as if my name alone would attack him if he said it too loud. "I need to talk to you out back."

Out back? He needed to "talk to me out back?" Suddenly I felt like a little kid being called out of class for being naughty, and at first I began to resist. Was he speaking in this manner just trying to feel more important then me? Was it just habit, or was he really saying, "I'm better than you are." With the tank fish, it had been very easy to figure out what they were thinking, but Marlin's more complex mind was difficult to figure out. Since I'd been unable to pinpoint his thoughts, I just followed him "out back", which was really just on the other side of the anemone. We met eyes for a moment in icy silence.

"So," finally I decided to speak up. "What was it you needed to talk to me about? You didn't want her to hear?"

"Well," Marlin slowly answered. "It's not that I didn't want Dory to hear, but I need you to seriously think about this, and Dory would have just given us a snap decision."

Seriously think about this? What could he want me to seriously think about? I hadn't gotten much time to seriously think about anything, and it was frustrating me, since I was a professional serious thinker.

The little clownfish father took a deep breath. "Okay. I've been thinking…worrying, actually…"

Then I got it. He was going to ask me to leave, and I wouldn't have to break the news to them! I guess I looked a bit relieved, because Marlin seemed to calm down. "I remember you saying you were trying to find a place of your own, correct?"

I nodded. My mind formed the next sentence I expected to come out of his mouth next. "I believe it's time you moved on and tried to find this place, away from our home."

"I've been worrying because Nemo had really latched onto you, and I believe it would now be devastating to him if you went away…"

Yes, I had been concerned about the feelings of out little friend, but I hadn't been expecting something like this. I guess I looked a little more interested and my slight atmospheric change affected Marlin as well.

"So…" he continued, more excited. "I think maybe you should look for a place close to here, so that you can…y'know, visit once in a while."

I hadn't been expecting anything like this, but…this idea didn't seem too far-fetched. It actually made sense. It was like someone had turned a light on in my head. I was seeing everything differently. Why not? For the first time, I had been able to live somewhere without something terrible happening or feeling oppressed. Why not try my hardest to keep a place like this? I gave my little enlightening clownfish friend a bit of a smile, and he looked pleased with himself.

"I'll think about it." Using this phrase, it kept a pinch of suspense hanging in the air, and Marlin unsure if he had really proposed a useful idea. I had already made up my mind, of course, but since he had played games with my mind, I was now playing games with his. Since I know how easy it is to read others' minds, I make sure no one can read mine.

The very next day, I began looking for somewhere close I could stay, preferably somewhere small and dark.

While I was gliding through the reef-ways of Eco Valley, I came upon a newsstand, and one advertisement caught my eye. "Eco Valley- Caverns For Sale! Dirt Cheap! See Mr. E. Spear at Flat Plat Acres." I politely asked the newsstand vendor where I could find Flat Plat Acres, and he answered, although I had to ask him to repeat his directions. The first time, his voice had been too shaky to understand.

A few minutes later, I arrived at Flat Plat Acres, a small neighborhood composed of two rocks, filled with caverns. Maybe I could find a suitable apartment in one of these rocks. I was also pleased realizing that this neighborhood wasn't all that far away from the pickup clearing and Nemo's anemone home.

"Excuse me," an odd little fish with blue and yellow stripes spoke up from below me. "Can I help you, sir?"

"I'm looking for Mr. E. Spear, it's about the caverns for sale…"

The little fish smiled a little. "You're speaking to him. Now, what about the caverns?"

"Well, I'm looking for a cavern around here to live in- just me, so it should be pretty small, but not extremely tight. Preferably in a darkened corner."

"Well I think I have one of those for you. Right this way." It took a while to swim to the other side of the large rock, and on the way Mr. E. Spear tried to make conversation. "See, most fish go for the bright, roomy places, so I've got plenty smaller and darker caverns available. You can check them out and see which one you like."

He brought me around to several different caverns. I kept the darkest ones in mind and kept on searching. I was hoping to find a cavern with something strange or intimidating on the outside that could frighten away over-friendly neighbors, like the skull, but so far I couldn't find anything intimidating about these caverns except their amount of darkness.

Finally, Mr. E. Spear turned around and said, "Well, um, that's all the caverns we have here. Of the ones that are small and dark, that is." The little striped fish was slightly quivering as I stared at him. "But…uh, there is one more, but…we normally don't put it on the listings because we think that no fish would want to live there…but, if you want to look at it…"

A few minutes into the future, we were floating just outside of another small, dark cavern, except with something white sticking out of the rock side just above the entrance. Closer examination revealed that it was a perfectly white fish skeleton, tightly wedged between the boulders.

"We tried to get it out," Mr. E. Spear said, his voice trembling. "It wouldn't budge. Some people say it was a poor fish that panicked during a barracuda attack, got stuck between these two rocks and starved to death."

Even though he was floating behind me, I could see the shocked look on his face as I casually strolled into the cavern and glanced around. It came equipped with a little spongy bed and a sheet of woven seaweed like all the other caverns, but other than that, it looked untouched. Poor little Mr. E. Spear looked even more terrified when I glided back out with a smile on my face. "I'll take it!"

His wide eyes stared back at me. "Y-You're sure? You know, some people say this cavern is haunted…"

"I don't believe in ghosts," I immediately answered, although that was only part of my initial thought: I don't believe in ghosts, I am one.

Mr. E. Spear nervously took me back out to the front of the room to fill out my application. "Name?"

"Gill." Looking over his head, I saw him write down my name next to "cavern 519." "I don't have any money right now, but…" like a responsible citizen, I began to explain that I had no money, but I'd pay for the cavern as soon as I found a job.

Mr. E. Spear held up a bumpy fin, interrupting me. "Don't worry about it, you can have it for free." Wow, a free cavern! It was then that I realized I actually was very lucky.

Two days later, after settling into my cozy cavern, everything would be revealed to me in a brainstorm flash. I had been doing just fine, visiting the clownfish and regal blue tang family to tell them about my findings. No friendly neighbors came to bother me, scared to death of the haunted cavern. Anyway, on that revealing day, I would make a decision that would forever change my life- and reveal to me my true purpose and place in society.

I swam out to the pickup clearing to see Nemo off to school, along with Marlin and Dory. This had become daily routine to me, but usually, after it was over, I had nothing to do with myself. I basically just floated around, gazing at the beautiful, 100 authentic coral, and counting my blessing. No one bothered to come near me, as I was "that creepy Moorish idol who lives in the haunted cavern." Well, it was an improvement from being "that creepy Moorish idol who lives in the fake skull."

On one of these days, I was hovering in the pickup clearing with Marlin and Dory, waiting for Nemo to return. I was so incredibly bored I picked up a short stalk of broken-off seaweed and began to write quotes from _The Seaside Tales_ in the sand. Little did I know, Dory was hovering above me, reading my writing.

"Aaaaaaaaa…aaan…Anne…dddd…and. Wwwww…hhho. Wa-ho? No, hooooo. Who. And who. Mmmmiiigg…hhhhht. Mig-hit? No, miiiight. And who might…yyyoooooo…bbbeeeeeee…and who might you be?"

I suddenly realized that she was reading what I was writing and whipped around. "Dory? You can read???"

Her reading had caught the attention of Marlin, and he swam over at this sentence. "Gill? You can write???" The three of us stared at each other in bewilderment.

"Hi Dad! Hi Aunt Dory and Uncle Gill!" We were so busy confusing ourselves that we hadn't even seen (or _heard_) the spotted ray arrive.

"Wow…" Dory said. "I can read, but I don't know any fish that can write."

Marlin shook his head. "They're out there, they're just very scarce- even more scarce than fish that can read."

"Cool!" Dory cried. "You're really smart, Uncle Roadkill!"

Once again, it was Nemo's statement that sparked this wild and crazy barinstorm. "I want to learn to write! Can you teach me, Uncle Gill?"

I pushed the idea away, saying something like, "Maybe another time." However, all that night, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I didn't sleep all night, and was a bit happy with now having something to seriously think about.

That afternoon, I had built up my courage and was now ready to get this project rolling.

The big spotted ray glided down into the pickup clearing, letting off a stream of little fish students, and finishing up a song. After he had finished saying his farewell, I swam up in front of him. He didn't seem to notice me and began to turn around.

"Excuse me," I spoke up, getting his attention.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't see you there. What can I do for you?" he said in a loud, friendly voice, the kind of voice that I knew would get on my nerves after 15 minutes.

"Actually, I'm looking for a job."

"A job?" the ray said. "Well, can't help you there." He began to turn around and leave me by myself again.

"Wait!" I yelled. When I yell, no matter how much bigger the other fish are they shut up and listen. The big ray stopped in his tracks and turned back around. "Look, this may sound like a crazy idea, but I've been thinking about it for a long time, and I think it had potential, so just listen!"

The whole pickup clearing went deadly silent. Here was my stage. Let the show go on.

"I'm not doubting your teaching, or criticizing this institution, but it seems like these kids only have one teacher-you, a science teacher. What about the other subjects essential for a well-rounded knowledge of this world? What is science without mathematic configurations? What is science without language in which to convey these ideas? Subjects go hand in hand, and one should never be taught more than another. A universal knowledge is important to these young fish if they wish to advance in the world. We owe it to them to give them the best education they can get!"

After my little speech, I was surprised to hear a resounding applause behind me. I hadn't expected to get this much support from just one stirring up of issues.

"Well…" the spotted ray began to say. "Yes. The Great Barrier Reef school system is flawed. We've been trying to ignore it for a long time. You're not the first fish to bring it up. So…what's this got to do with you finding a job?"

"Well…" this was the most daring portion of my proposal. "I have been properly educated in the nearby reef portion, am one of the few fish in the area that knows how to write, and have had experiences with children. I believe I'm qualified to be Eco Valley's first English teacher."

This sent a wave of murmurs through the crowd of parents that had been applauding me moments before. Did they really want to send their kids off with this creepy Moorish idol?

The spotted ray gaped at me for a second. Finally, he said, "Well…are you certified?"

"Certified?" There it was again. Whenever I thought I had a foolproof plan, something else came up, that I had not been expecting.

"Yes," the spotted ray continued. "In order to teach in this reef portion, you must be certified as a teacher at the Barrier Reef School, or a branch of it."

Once again, I felt like killing myself for not seeing this beforehand. Even though I had begun to have some foresight, I hadn't seen this coming. "Well…" I was thinking that maybe I could enroll in the Barrier Reef School and obtain certification. But did I really want to go through all that when I wasn't sure that teaching was the right path for me? I was just about to find some way to let the crowd of parents down easy without making myself look like a fool.

This idea was interrupted and shot back down as Marlin suddenly swam forward, right next to me. "Mr. Ray, please. I know this fish may not have the proper certification requirements, but the truth is, very few fish do."

Mr. Ray lifted one tip of his wing to his mouth. "True. I don't know any fish certified as English teachers…"

"I know you could just wait until he gets a certification, but I believe this is very urgent. In this new generation, much depends on how much you know. These little fish need to know how to read and write…their…their lives could depend on it!"

Everyone began staring again, surprised with Marlin's outpouring of concern. I was among the staring fish, and after noticing how put on the spot he was, turned around and tried not to stare.

"Well…" Mr. Ray began. "We'll try it out. You can come here tomorrow afternoon for a mini class, if everything goes well, we'll see about getting you a real job, Mr. …um…what was your name?"

"Gill."

"Mr. Gill."

As soon as our conversation was over, little Nemo jumped on my side. "Yea! Uncle Gill is going to be my English teacher! I'm going to learn how to write!"

"Shh," Marlin gently advised him. "We're not sure about that yet."

---

That night, I couldn't stop thinking about what would happen the next day. The night was not spent sleeping, but weighing pros and cons. Some pros included being able to open up more to others, and to spread my knowledge. Some cons included having too much responsibility and seeming to favor my "nephew". As much as I switched from left natural side to right plastic side beneath the seaweed, trying to sleep was useless.

Suddenly, a face popped up in front of me from out of the darkness. "Good morning," she said. "What 'chu thinkin' about?"

"Nothing," I instantly replied. "Go back to sleep."

Dory totally ignored my prewritten dialogue. She glided right up and tapped my side. "Something's the matter. What's wrong, huh? You okay?" She may act a little dumb, but she has an uncanny ability to know exactly what someone is thinking.

I sighed and took in the lovely, pure cavern water. "I'm worrying about what happened today. Do you think I'd make a good teacher?"

She shook her head. "Nope. I think you'd make an _excellent_ teacher."

"Really?" I asked. "You don't think they'll think I'm favoring Shar…uh, Nemo? What if I'm not strict enough?"

"You don't need to be strict," Dory easily replied. "You can be a nice guy."

"Yeah, but someone needs to whip the troublemakers into shape. Some need a little motivation to do their homework…What if I let one of them get hurt? Oh, I'll kill myself!"

Suddenly Dory burst out laughing.

"What?!" I cried. "That's not funny!"

She chuckled for a while. "I'm sorry, I just couldn't help noticing…Marlin's becoming more like you, and you're becoming more like Marlin!"

I froze in place. I think I'm so advanced and I can figure anything out, but sometimes I don't see something until someone else points it out for me. As I gazed back at Dory, her face became pink, and her eyes became small black beads. Dory was acting just like Peach at that moment. I did a double take, caught my breath, and glided back beneath the seaweed "blanket." "Well, then, it's decided. I must not be paranoid. I'm going to be a teacher!"

"Whoopee!" Dory cried. "I'll see you at school tomorrow after…something. Why are you paranoid?"

I sighed, turned onto my left (non-plastic) side and said, "Never mind."

---

Sooner than anyone expected, it was tomorrow afternoon. I was at a loss, since I didn't really know what I would do with these kids for the half hour that they were under my supervision.

At the exact time, right after lunch, Mr. Ray came whooshing into the pickup clearing, once again finishing up a song.

"Hey, what gives?" I heard a little voice ask.

"We're getting out early!" another called.

Mr. Ray waited until all of the students on his back filtered out into the pickup clearing. "Okay, class, today we have a special visitor."

Once again, I actually felt a little nervous, being an intruder again. What was I doing, barging into this peaceful little valley, demanding a piece of it for myself? This wasn't where I belonged, and I shouldn't try to force myself into a place where I wasn't welcome.

Mr. Ray swooped over to present me, and I could feel his large triangular shadow descending over me. When I had once been a glorious leader of a hopeless tank band, I was now a stranger in the shadow of a ray.

"This is just a little experiment, and I hope you kids don't mind being our test class. Now, this is Mr. Gill. From now until the release time, he will be conducting a test English class with you."

All of the students (except for Nemo) all stared at me in wide-eyed terror. I knew what they were thinking, because this was often the kind of reaction I got from strangers: Oh no, fun's over, here comes the army general. "My life is over," I heard one little striped fish whisper.

"So, I hope you'll all be good for Mr. Gill, just like you are for me, and…well, we'll see how this turns out." At last, he turned his long tail and "flew" away, looking very worried. Did he think I'd hurt them just because I wasn't properly certified? It wasn't as if I had taken the teacher test and failed; I had never taken the test!

As I was going off into oblivious trance-like thinking mode, little voices began whispering behind me.

"Who _is _that guy?" one little girl's voice asked.

"That's my Uncle Gill!" Nemo cried.

"Your uncle?" A little boy asked. "How can he be your uncle? He doesn't look anything like you!"

"He is to my uncle! Watch this! Uncle Gill!"

At last, I turned around and got a glance at my class before Nemo pounced on me. It was made up of many different species of fish, an octopus, a seahorse, three different crabs, and even a little turtle. With twenty-three students, it was a pretty big class, but I was determined that I could handle it.

"Uncle Gill! Uncle Gill!" Nemo called, bobbing up and down in front of my nose. "You're going to teach us to write, right?"

I realized that I must keep order within this little society, and gave the little clownfish a small warning. "Calm down, Shark Bait; get back with the rest of your class." Using my snout, I pointed him back in the direction of the crowd, but then I covered my mouth, noticing my slipup. Thank goodness Marlin wasn't around at that moment. He didn't like me calling Nemo by his tank name, thinking it was a sign that I thought of him only as a little runt to be eaten by sharks.

"Shark Bait?" the little seahorse asked, confused.

"Oh, that's my nickname," Nemo explained to him. "He gave it to me when I met him in the tank…" The proud little clownfish began to go off on his entire story of escape and reunion.

I was about to slide up and interfere with this retelling of a frequently retold story, but the little turtle made a comment at that moment. "Yeah, I know that story! It's totally awesome! The saga of the Jellyman!"

"Aw, we've heard that story millions of times before," a reddish-orange fish with blue stripes down his side complained.

"Okay," I said, interrupting what could be a potential argument. "Quiet down." There was a moment of total silence as the shivering students stared at me. Even the troublemakers wondered: Do I dare say a word and see what this martinet does to me? "You're here today to learn the English language. Now, I'm quite sure you can all speak it well, but now you must learn how to read it and, in turn, write it."

A little parrotfish that reminded me a lot of Maisey slowly lifted her fin.

"Yes, uh…" I quickly glanced down at my attendance list and saw "Molly Parrotfish" printed near the bottom. "…Molly?"

"Um…are we going to sing?" she quietly asked.

I should have been expecting this, since all of these students came from a class of constant songs, but there was really nothing I could do about it. "Well, this is a different kind of class. I'm sorry, but we're not going to be singing in this class."

I was a bit surprised to see the little smiles beginning to form on their faces. "Yea!" several students in the back cried.

"Yeah!" Nemo's butterfly fish companion spoke up. "We're sick of singing!"

"I know!" the reddish fish with the blue stripes spoke again. "I like Mr. Ray, but does he have to make us sing every single day?!"

Slowly, the other students began chiming in with additions to this protest. At last, even the little turtle was swimming back and forth, chanting, "No more tunes! No more tunes!"

"Alright, quiet down," I said again. That was all it took to get their undivided attention. "As I said, in this class you will be learning to write and read in the human language. We'll first start off with the alphabet. You'll be learning how to write each letter and the different sounds each letter makes. Then, we'll move on to combining these letters to form simple words…"

"This is going to be boring," a bluish fish with big yellow stripes suddenly had enough pluck to interrupt me. All the little fish turned to look at him in shock.

"And why do you think it will be boring?" Was I doing something wrong, or did he have a contradictive view of these mechanics? I shook myself, remembering Dory's revealing words. I must not be paranoid. How could I have already done something wrong in the past ten minutes?

"My big brothers go to a fish school way out in the reef somewhere. They have to read and write all the time. They say it's hard and boring."

This exact situation was unexpected, but something similar seemed inevitable. "Well, your brothers are very lucky, it's too bad they don't see the potential of their abilities."

The little striped fish seemed confused and just stared at me, wondering what I would do to him.

"Some of the ones that have known how to write and read for so long have forgotten the good points of it. Not many fish in the ocean know how to read, and there are even less fish out there that know how to write. You may wind up being able to do things that even your parents can't do!"

During that little meeting with Dory, she had told me that Marlin couldn't read, but advised me not to mention it around him since he'd grown pretty sensitive about it. Perhaps he was more sensitive about it now because his son now had an adopted uncle who could do things he couldn't.

"You like stories, right?"

Everyone murmured in agreement.

"Well, if you learn to read and write, you can hear stories from books, and they won't have to be told to you anymore. You can even write a story of your own!"

This seemed to catch the attention of some of the little fish. That still left half that were just staring blankly, waiting for the end of school.

Suddenly, I got an idea. It was time to spice things up a little. "Okay, I'll give you an example. I first learned to read around your age, and if I hadn't learned, I wouldn't know this story to tell you today…"

All the students gathered around me in interest. Once again, I was the chief and they were my tribe, clamoring around, hanging on to my every word. "This is from a book called _The Seaside Tales_…"

"Oooo!" Nemo cried. "The Papernell story! Are you going to tell us the Papernell story, Uncle Gill?! I really liked that story, but I fell asleep before you finished it…"

I smiled as we reminisced about times passed. "Well, now you'll hear how it ends!" So for the umpteenth time, I began to retell the story of Captain Papernell and his five children friends, crossing the sea in search of adventure. The only difference was that now I had a real, appreciative audience. At last, I reached about the halfway mark of the story. "_Its shimmering side crashed the boat like a gong/ The children all gasped, "It's a hundred feet long!"/ But Papernell said, "You take heed of my song/ 'Tis not humane to bind him with a tether/ Humans and animals must work together_."

Soon after this memorable quote, I felt a pair of spotted wings whoosh past my filamentous extension. "Okay, kids," I told them. "That's all the time we have. It's time for you to go home!"

I expected a group cheer after this statement, but instead groaning and complaining voices lifted from the tribe. Mr. Ray's face descended behind them, and from the look on it, I could tell I had passed the test.

"Aw, do we have to go?" the little seahorse complained.

"I wanna hear the rest of the story!" the little pink octopus cried.

"Next time," I told them, now knowing that there _would _be a next time.

After the students had filtered back out with their parents, Mr. Ray glided up to me. "Well," he said, "Looks like you're hired. Wednesdays and Fridays."

I nodded. "Sounds good." And just like that, my life had changed.

Next Wednesday, they demanded that I finish up _The Seaside Tales_, and after that, I thought it was time to start the alphabet. I picked up a piece of seaweed, stripped it of its leaves, and used it to write a letter A in the sand. "Do any of you know what this is?"

"Oooo! I know!" a blue buck-toothed fish called. "It sha mountain with shnow on it!"

"Nuh-uh," one tiny green fish cried. "It's a weird arrow thing!"

"It's a triangle with legs!" a purple fish said.

I tried hard not to laugh and ended up smiling at them. "No, no, this is an "A", it's the first letter of the alphabet…"

The lessons continued like this for s few more Wednesday and Fridays, and one day, while I was making myself a quill by stripping another piece of seaweed, it came to me. Once again, in an effort to make these children feel more empowered, I could replicate an induction ceremony with them.

The next Friday, the group of students dully swam up to me holding their stripped sticks. (The seahorse had to hold it in his tail, and the octopus in her tentacles.) "Well, good afternoon, class," I said to them.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Gill," they chanted, looking very sleepy and bored. Some of them perked up as they looked at me, wondering why I had that mysterious smile on my face. I loved to make them wonder and keep them in suspense. That is part of a teacher's job- to make things exciting.

At last, when I had everyone's attention, staring at me, wondering what was going on, I made the announcement. "Okay, put your sticks down- we're having a special class session today."

The students looked at each other in confusion. What did this weird teacher have up his sleeve? I could see them wondering.

"Today, we're going to have a ceremony."

"A ceremony?" That was the general response among the baffled pupils. Surely their almighty leader had gone crazy now.

Nemo was the only one not stuck in the pea-green muck. "A ceremony? You mean like in the tank? When you gave me my nickname?" Now the fish swarmed around Nemo, demanding an explanation.

"You'll see." I set the young fish off to work on their adornments, giving them a big stack of seaweed to rip up, tie together, and make into almost anything they wanted. Most of the boys made headdresses or "feathered" headbands. Some girls made grass skirts or necklaces.

While they were working on their projects, I constructed the best fake volcano I could, over a naturally spewing bubble jet. To make it "work" someone would pull a strip near the base, uncovering the bubble jet, and the bubbles would come out the top of the fake volcano. It wasn't exactly the same, because it was much too bright, and there was no mysterious glow from the side, but it was the closest I could get.

The little kids trooped into the area wearing their tribal best. Nemo received the job of uncovering the bubble jet, because he had already done this, and it would just be show for him. I gave a short speech, similar to the one at the tank, using a few of the words Bloat added, and leaving out others that didn't apply in this situation.

The first student to take the plunge was the little pink octopus whose name at this moment was Pearl. Nemo pulled the strip and the bubble jet shot out. Pearl concentrated and bounced through the spray, barely missing my snout. Her classmates cheered and clapped for her. Now came the best part. I lifted her up and presented her to the crowd. For a moment, I forgot where I was. It was just like another time warp had opened up, this one sucking me into the past.

"From this moment on, you shall now be known as Ink Jet." The dialogue came out of my mouth without even thinking about it, and I half expected Bloat, Gurgle, Bubbles, and Deb to pop out of nowhere chanting, "Ink Jet, ooo ha ha!"

Everyone stared at me, noticing my hesitation. Nemo suddenly zoomed up behind me. "Ink Jet, ooo ha ha!" he cried.

"Uh, just forget that part, Shark Bait," I told him, nudging Ink Jet back over to her friends.

Next came his other friend, the little seahorse, Sheldon, who received the nickname of Thoroughbred. Nemo's other friend, the butterfly fish whose name was Tad, was nicknamed Sea Comb. I nicknamed the little blue fish with buckteeth Freckles, and the parrotfish named Molly just Molly Polly. A fish with a black face and a blue striped body was nicknamed Bandit, a little all green one Kiwi, and the purple one Violet Nectar. There was also a little blue-and-yellow striped one nicknamed Banana Split. During the ceremony, I noticed that he bared a strong resemblance to Mr. E. Spear, and I later found out that he was his son. The one with blue stripes was named Bobo, and his friend the greenish one with big yellow stripes was named Honey Nut. Then the seven little green fish were the Mawspot Septuplets: Mawspot 1, Mawspot 2, Mawspot 3, Mawspot 4, Mawspot 5, Mawspot 6, and Mawspot 7. Then there were three crabs: a green one, Psychedelic, a purple and orange one, Hawaiian Plus, and a little orange one, Noodle. Poor Noodle was always fighting with Bobo and Honey Nut, because they liked to steal his shell and play monkey in the middle with it. Even though if I ever had children, I wouldn't want that many, I knew that unlike my parents, if I had 300 kids, I'd be able to name them all without running out of names.

The little turtle nicknamed himself when it came time for his induction. "Thanks, dude, but I don't need a nickname. I already got one, man! I'm the Super-Awesome-Wipeout-Tour-Messenger-Survival-Dude!"

"Um, welcome brother Super-Awesome-Survival…what was the rest?"

"Super-Awesome-Wipeout-Tour-Messenger-Survival-Dude!"

"Super-Awesome-Wipeout-Tour-Survival-Dude."

"You forgot Messenger."

"Look, kid, that's the best you're going to get, unless you want to be here all day." The other kids laughed at us, which is what I wanted to happen. "Okay, if anyone has a problem with their name, or doesn't like the name I've given you, just come and talk to me, otherwise these will be the names I will call you during our class time together."

"Cool," Bobo said. "It's like a club or something."

"It's just to make things a little more interesting," I informed them. Then, the shell bell rang and that Friday's class was over.

---

I found it hard to believe for the next few months that after about three years, my life constantly changing, I had a permanent fixation on Eco Valley, Nemo's family, and these students. I now had a commitment to these young fish, and although I hated to be tied down, this commitment instilled me with a feeling of a freedom that I couldn't achieve just by wandering about the ocean. There were two types of freedom that I had at last attained. The body may be free, able to go anywhere and do anything, but the soul also must be free, with the ideas to make things happen and to unlock itself, laying its contents out for possibly harmful exposure. For a while I figured teaching the children the English language and passing on my concrete knowledge was my purpose in life, but I would soon find a deeper meaning. There was a reason I had endured so much ridicule, there was a reason I had kept on fighting, although the chances of surviving were slim. There was a reason for Nemo's capture and his involvement in my life.

That day, I was conducting a class just like I always did. Now we were on the letter E, and the children were practicing their pronunciation, reading simple words from the letters they knew, such as "Dad" and "Bed".

I heard laughing from the back of the crowd, but took it as a good sign. Maybe they were beginning to realize that reading could be fun. However, I was horribly, horribly wrong.

Once again, we all looked up into the water as the shell bell rang to indicate the end of the school session. The little fish all paddled off to their parents waiting in the clearing around us. Marlin was bringing Nemo home today, so I just floated there for a few seconds, meditating.

When I opened my eyes again, they set upon the little blue Freckles. She hovered, alone in the clearing, covering her speckled face with her light blue fins. I glanced around, wondering where her parents were- she and I were the only ones left in the clearing. Perhaps they were late to pick her up. Sometimes fish get tied up at work, and they hurt their children although they really don't mean to. I slowly approached her, as not to scare her off.

"Freckles…" I gently addressed her.

She lifted her spotted face, trembling with fear and sadness. She had been crying.

"It's okay," I told her. "Your parents will be here in a little while to pick you up. I'll wait with you."

Freckles shook her head and held back more tears. "I-It'sh not that…I know they'll be here…I jusht…" she hid her face again. For a moment, I just let her get her emotions out, because that was often a crucial part of the recovery and healing process. Once she had calmed down, I slipped a little bit closer.

"Now, what's the matter? You can tell me, I promise I won't tell anyone else…"

She shook her head again.

"I need to know, because maybe I can help you…"

She frowned. "You're not a plashtic shurgeon."

I let this bounce around in my head for a while. She probably meant that she was upset about her appearance. Female fish are often overly critical about the way they look, even more so than Moorish idols.

At last, little Freckles burst out with her problems, and she couldn't keep quiet anymore. "They…they make fun of me. Nobody will be my friend becaushe I have thish ugly tooth…and becaushe I talk funny…" She turned away again and stared out into the open sea. "Why am I telling you thish? You're my teasher. You don't understand."

While she hid her face again and tried not to look at me, she didn't see the smile on my face. While she was a little spotted blue fish, crying from the rejection of her classmates, I saw a little Moorish idol, crying from the rejection of his siblings.

"Freckles, I know something to cheer you up."

She slowly turned around again. From the expression on her face, I could tell that she really didn't believe I could cheer her up. "…What?"

I glanced quickly back up at the clock. "I believe we have enough time. I'm going to tell you a story."

Freckles began to wipe her eyes. "_The Sheashide Talesh_?"

Grinning, I shook my head. "No. This is a different kind of story, but I think you'll like it."

She sniffed and swam a little closer to listen.

"Well, once upon a time, there was a young fish around your age, and he lived in a reef cavern protected by a spiky shell with his 99 brothers and sisters…"

"Wow," Freckles said. "_99_ brothers and shishters?"

"Yup, there were 99 of them, and they all had a perfectly white stripe down their side…" I began to tell her the beginning of my life's story, about my sibling's terrible treatment, the death of my parents, and the run-in with the book. I finally got to my departure.

"What happened nexsht?" Freckles asked, completely intrigued.

"Well," I said, trying to make a very long story short. "He went on a long journey, grew up, and got captured by a couple of humans and stuck in a fish tank. After two years, he managed to escape, and went searching for a new home. He met a couple of old friends, and they took him to this amazing new place called Eco Valley…"

"It'sh you!" Freckles cried. "I knew it! They really did those things to you?"

"Of course they did," I explained. "I was a little weirdo back then. Nobody liked me…well, except my mother. But I grew up and I learned to _make _fish respect me, and nobody teases me anymore."

Freckles clenched her little blue fins. "Yeah…I have to fight back! I'll make them stop teasing me!" She stopped short. "Hey…I didn't talk funny that time!"

Just then, two bigger bluish fish, resembling Freckles floated down, obviously her parents. She began to swim towards them, but suddenly stopped and zoomed back up to me. To my surprise, she threw her fins on my side in as much of a hug as she could manage. "Thank you, Mr. Gill." Then she swam back off with her parents.

I felt I had given her a lot- the assurance to stand up to her teasers, but she had also given me something, and I hovered there for a moment in joyful revelation. This was my true purpose. Although there had been many other small assumptions, distracting me from the ultimate target, this was what it had all led up to. I had endured all these horrible experiences in order to help the young fish of this area, to pass on my hard-earned knowledge of the world, so that this generation would not have to go through what I did. By improving the lives of these fish, I was also improving the world, and at last I knew that I had reached my destination.

At long last, I was home, with Nemo, Marlin, Dory, Mr. Mask, Mr. E. Spear, and all the precious children in that class, where I was truly free. Although the adventures were over, I knew that my new life was only just beginning.

Although a suitable purpose I thought was helping Nemo, he was only a window into this beautiful future. He was a sign of things to come, and the biggest clue as to my true, hidden purpose. Nemo is a small light, shining as a reminder of what I was meant to do. Nemo is another extension of myself, just like Freckles, and I had helped him in the same manner. Nemo is "omen" spelled backwards.

---

Preceding the little meeting, Freckles did begin to become more confident and even told her friends about what I had done for her. This sparked ideas, and many of the other fish began coming to me with their own problems. I had transformed into a teacher/psychiatrist/friend. Some even had enough determination to swim right into my "haunted" cavern to visit me privately.

I knew much more about my students than most teachers do. Honey Nut had ten older brothers who were all taking courses at prodigious universities in another part of the reef. He was sick of always being in their shadows and having high expectations from his parents. Bobo's parents were getting divorced and he was angry and frustrated with them, trying to get them to stay together. Molly Polly was a bit obsessed, thinking she was too fat. Violet Nectar was sick of being called a tomboy, and all of the girls thought she was weird. Kiwi was extremely nervous and paranoid, and wanted to stop worrying about every little thing. Children always had so many problems, and I was here to help lessen the pain of these problems. I had become another Niches of the world.

---

I knew that this was the life I was meant to lead. From the day I was born, it had already been predetermined that this would be my life. "I'll find a new home. Even if it takes me a long time to get there." Yes, there had been periods of hopelessness, many horrible obstacles to overcome, all leading to this single, wonderful reward. There are many plastic volcanoes in life, but once you reach the other side, you are an important part of the universe. You have a purpose, a meaningful life, and day by day, you live out your existence in harmony and pleasure. This is what you were meant to do, and life in general becomes brighter. A spot of light, even if coated with darkness, will one day grow and deliver you to that bright future. You must shake off both sets of chains, and free yourself, mentally and physically…find your place.

As I float here now, just above the cliff where the reef world ends and the delivering ocean begins, I turn to the future. There is no way to tell what destiny has in store for me next, darkness or light, but no matter what may change during the course of the next years, my mission shall remain fixed, as it is meant to be. Life shall never fail me, in the end. This will always be my purpose. This will always be my home.

---

THE END


End file.
